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White Nights (Shetland Quartet #2)

by Ann Cleeves (Goodreads Author)

3.87 of 5 stars 3.87 · rating details · 1,201 ratings · 165 reviews

The electrifying follow up to the award-winning Raven Black

Raven Black received crime fiction’s highest monetary honor, the Duncan Lawrie Dagger Award. Now Detective Jimmy Perez is back in an electrifying sequel.

It’s midsummer in the Shetland Islands, the time of the white nights, when birds sing at midnight and the sun never sets. Artist Bella Sinclair throws an elaborate...more

Hardcover, 400 pages

Published September 16th 2008 by Minotaur Books (first published 2005)

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Jan 29, 2013 Louise rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, scotland-fiction

Scotland - NOT Russia

Mysteries are not my genre. The few I've started in recent years were written like TV dramas (stock characters and more action than nuance), so I've put them down. I picked this one for its setting and was pleasantly surprised.

Writer Ann Cleeves held my attention for two days as I followed Jimmy Perez on the mystery trail. Cleeves created excellent characters; people whom you'd realistically expect to live in the Shetland Islands. She has a good sense of timing, introducing...more

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Jan 03, 2013 Pam rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: scotland, crime-fiction

AUTHOR: Cleeves,Ann
TITLE: White Nights
DATE READ: 01/03/13
RATING: 4.5/B+
GENRE/PUB DATE/PUBLISHER/# OF PGS: Crime Fiction/2008/St. Martin's Press/392
SERIES/STAND ALONE: #2 Shetland Islands Quartet
TIME/PLACE: 2000's, Shetland Islands (Scotland)
CHARACTERS: Detective Jimmy Perez
FIRST LINES: Jimmy Perez glimpsed the back of the street performer as he drove through the town, but it didn't register. He had other things on his mind.
COMMENTS: It is summertime in the Sheltand Islands -- a period of almos...more

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Aug 31, 2012 Colleen rated it 5 of 5 stars

I read Raven Black last year though I don't think I ever reviewed it. I love mysteries, especially ones set in the UK, and so I was delighted to find this series. The mystery here was intriguing and I admit I was guessing until the end- a sure sign of a successful thriller in my opinion. It is hard to share too many details of the story without spoiling it, but the writing and characters are excellent and truly make the novel.

What I like best about Cleeves' work is that the Shetland Islands play...more

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May 30, 2012 Larraine rated it 5 of 5 stars

Having recently finished "Raven Black," the first in the "Shetland Quartet" by Ann Cleeves, I decided why not just zip through the entire set. I'm taking a break with my next book, but meanwhile I've just finished this one. "Raven Black" took place in the winter, a time when days are short and nights are long and dark. Shetland is in the far north of Scotland, a place where people motor over to Norway for fun.

Jimmy Perez, the local detective, was introduced in the first book. Despite the Spanis...more Having recently finished "Raven Black," the first in the "Shetland Quartet" by Ann Cleeves, I decided why not just zip through the entire set. I'm taking a break with my next book, but meanwhile I've just finished this one. "Raven Black" took place in the winter, a time when days are short and nights are long and dark. Shetland is in the far north of Scotland, a place where people motor over to Norway for fun.

Jimmy Perez, the local detective, was introduced in the first book. Despite the Spanish surname, his family has been there for generations. Their family legend, in fact, is that Perez was a sailor who was washed ashore from a Spanish Armada ship that went astray. Certainly is a romantic tale. However, despite the fact that he has Mediterranean features, he has been accepted as a native for his whole life as was his father before him and so on.

The story opens with Jimmy accompanying Fran, a divorced mother of a young daughter, ex-wife of a former friend of Jimmy's, and a serious artist. Jimmy and Fran are getting serious now. He is spending more and more time with her and her daughter. (In the first book we also learned that Jimmy is divorced. His first wife had a miscarriage and took it hard. He had a hard time trying to give her comfort. She left him and is now remarried with several children.)

Fran is exhibiting some of her work with Bella, a local artist of some renown. A lot of people who were invited did not show up, but it's still a successful evening until one of the guests suddenly collapses into tears and claims amnesia. Later that night one of the local farmers who also takes his boat out for fishing finds him dead - hung from a rafter of the fishing hut.

This story had enough twists and turns and red herrings that it kept me guessing until the very end. In addition, it really has a marvelous sense of place much like the first one. That's something that appeals to me personally. I'm really enjoying this series. Like I said, I'm taking a break and reading a different author next, but I'll get back to Cleeves and finish up her Shetland quarter. After all, I'm half way through now! (less)

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Mar 21, 2012 Mary Gilligan-Nolan rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is the second book in the Shetlands trilogy. Following Inspector Jimmy Lopez and his relationship with Fran from book 1., Fran is displaying her art at a joint exhibition with local celebrity, Bella Sinclair, also an artist and Jimmy is accompanying Fran on her big night. A stranger, makes a dramatic scene at the exhibition, claiming he has amnesia and not knowing his name and then disappearing as quickly as he appeared. Jimmy has spoken to the man, but cannot get any information from him a...more

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Nov 16, 2011 Richard rated it 3 of 5 stars

Rating: 3.75* of five

This is the second Shetland Islands Quartet thriller, which marketing decision was a good one...calling these thrillers instead of mysteries sets up the expectation of a whacking good read though not necessarily the play-fair-with-the-reader puzzle-solver that modern mysteries are.

Cleeves writes wonderfully clearly and carefully about flawed, real, lovable characters in bad emotional states because of violent, evil acts disrupting their very ordinary lives.

The stories she te...more Rating: 3.75* of five

This is the second Shetland Islands Quartet thriller, which marketing decision was a good one...calling these thrillers instead of mysteries sets up the expectation of a whacking good read though not necessarily the play-fair-with-the-reader puzzle-solver that modern mysteries are.

Cleeves writes wonderfully clearly and carefully about flawed, real, lovable characters in bad emotional states because of violent, evil acts disrupting their very ordinary lives.

The stories she tells in this series, to date, are proof to me that she's looked deeply into human nature and seen what its outlines show to the astute...there but for the grace of God go I. Everyone in this book flees from their hurts. Their flight is, inevitably, unsuccessful. Jimmy Perez can't run from his flaming co-dependence. Fran Hunter can't run from her seething ambition. Bella Sinclair can't run from her self-created persona, an Iron Maiden as effective as any Inquistor's torture device. Inspector Taylor, back up from Inverness, can't escape his fear-driven energy. No one, not any one, escapes.

The white nights of the title are a phenomenon of the far north. The sun never *quite* sets enough for true, dark night to fall. It's unsettling to some, it's a biorhythm disturber of tremendous power to have the body's million-year-old clock disrupted by absence of night. It's used by vile people the world over as a form of torture to deprive a human of good rest. And yet, there are thousands whose entire lives are lived with this condition as backdrop, and they seem not to feel its downside too strongly.

But let's face it...this fact of nature is a thriller-writer's best birthday present. What better metaphor, and even a pretty subtle one, for bringing to light old wrongs, shining the pitiless lamp of the torturer on the consciences of those guilty of undiscovered crimes, than a sun that won't go down?

That's a very nice backdrop you've chosen, Mme Cleeves, and it works very, very well for your chosen story, right up to and including the resolution of the multiple crimes. It does not make up for the sense I got, throughout the book, that your focus wasn't on me, your reader.

I recommend the book, yes. I even think there are some things about it that are outstanding, including the character developments of Perez and Taylor. But as I careened from incident to incident, I didn't sense that you were laying out this tale for my delectation, but rather leading me like a museum docent from exhibit to exhibit, trying in a haphazard way to lead my somewhat dim brain to a conclusion you'd already reached and were now impatiently awaiting my "aha!" moment. I am already in possession of "Red Bones", and I am very much looking forward to seeing what you have planned for me next, but I am a little bit put out by this sense of magisterial disdain that I got from the resolution to "White Nights." I wish you'd let me get there with you, instead of running ahead and pointing and waving your arms. (less)

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Jun 03, 2011 Regan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mysteries-suspense

The first of Ann Cleeves Shetland Island Quartet, Raven Black, was dark and moody, fitting it's mid-winter, far north setting with so few day light hours. I expected Cleeves second installment in the series to match, but there was a subtle difference in style, this time matching the off-kilter mood that overtakes everyone in the round-the-clock June daylight hours of Shetland.

I was more enamored of Detective Jimmy Perez in the first novel than the actual mystery, and I was glad to see that his c...more

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Jan 28, 2011 Judy rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is the second book in the Shetland Island Quartet and it is a good follow up to Raven Black--the first book. That novel took place during the winter on Shetland Island and there were few hours of daylight each day. White Nights takes place months later during the summer and the situation is reversed. There is a saying in the Shetland Islands that during the summer "everyone is a little mad" because it never really gets dark. During an art exhibition in Biddista, a remote village, an English...more

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Apr 23, 2011 Ruthiella rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011, mystery

The second book in the Shetlander Quartet, Inspector Jimmy Perez has another mystery to solve, when an “incomer” (non-Shetlander”) is found hanging in a fishing shed; was it suicide or murder? The book begins about a year after the first installation “Raven Black”. I hope Cleeves keeps this series limited to four books as planned, if only because the Shetland Islands are sparsely populated. Too many murders would verge on “Murder, She Wrote” or “Midsommer Murders” territory, where murder is almo...more

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Jul 20, 2011 Spuddie rated it 4 of 5 stars

#2 of the Shetland Island quartet featuring Inspector Jimmy Perez. At an art showing that features well-known Island matriarch Bella Sinclair as well as her nephew, famous fiddler Roddy Sinclair, and also the artwork of Perez's new girlfriend Fran Hunter, a stranger in black stops in front of a painting and begins sobbing hysterically, claiming he can't remember who he is and why he is there, or why he is so moved by the painting. He disappears into the night, but the next morning he's found han...more

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May 02, 2012 Marsha rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: mystery

I really like this series by Ann Cleeves that takes place way up north in the Shetland Islands off the Scottish coast. The hero/detective, Jimmy Perez, is a quiet, soft-spoken Islander (Fair Isle) who is one of them - but not quite one of them. He always manages to solve the cases in spite of the incoming chief. Incoming from Inverness on the mainland, that is. To complicate matters in WHITE NIGHTS, Jimmy Perez must deal with the summertime weather - it never gets completely dark up that near to...more

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Sep 30, 2012 Caroline O'Brien added it

I'm not even giving this book one star. I read Raven Black with high expectations, and was intrigued by the beginning, but slowly, my interest declined, until the end, where I was thoroughly disappointed. She had no concept of what she was writing. It was like she didn't want to go with the obvious answer, so she decided to try the curveball effect and miserably failed. But, since I'd already bought the sequel, White Nights, I decided I might as well give it a try; maybe it would be better than...more

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Aug 21, 2011 Jane rated it 4 of 5 stars

A few weeks ago I read Raven Black, the first of Shetland Island series. It was set in midwinter when the island is in almost total darkness. But surprisingly I didn't find the mood all that dark - there was more emphasis on the winter celebrations of New Year's Eve and Up Helly Aa.

White Nights is set in midsummer when it's never really dark. The atmosphere is edgy, people can't sleep, everyone seems to go a little bit mad. Especially the mysterious stranger who has a breakdown at Bella Sinclair...more

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Nov 17, 2012 Shonna Froebel rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This great mystery, set in Shetland in midsummer starts in the present but the mystery originates in the past. The title refers to the time, midsummer, where the sun never sets. Some people find this unnerving and it may influence behaviour.
When a mysterious stranger makes a scene at a gallery event and then claims to not know who he is, the mystery comes to life. Detective Jimmy Perez, a Shetland native is at the art gallery and worries about the stranger. When he is later called to the discove...more

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Feb 17, 2012 Mary J. rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is the second engaging installment of the Shetland Quartet featuring Detective Jimmy Perez in another puzzling murder case during the high season of midsummer on one of the Shetland Islands. The sun barely sets before it rises again, disturbing everyone's sleep and body clocks. Perez is joined again by Roy Taylor from Yorkshire to help track down the killer of a mysterious Englishman no one seems to know. The second murder of a young popular folksinger who put Shetland on the map further mu...more

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Sep 13, 2012 Liz rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: z-2012-mmm-challenge, z-2012madison-murder-ink-bookclub

Not as good as the characters in Louise Penny's book with the Three Pines mystery, but I did get caught up in the story. I didn't expect the person who did the murdering. Pretty surprising twist, but then again I haven't had much luck in figuring out who done it in most books. The officer - Perez - I don't know if I got a good feel about him. This is the second book, so maybe the first book offered more insight into Perez's character. I basically ploughed through this book to finish it before th...more

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Aug 29, 2011 Dot rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is a cracker of a mystery from Ann Cleeves and is the second in the Shetland Quartet. The detective is Jimmy Perez who has a seemingly laid back attitude compared to the detectives who come in from the mainland when major crime is being investigated, but his style mirrors that of the islanders who hold on to their secrets in spite of living in small isolated communities where everyone and everything is known.

The author builds tension as the bodies mount and the descriptions of the islands f...more

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May 06, 2012 Rob Kitchin rated it 4 of 5 stars

White Nights is the second book in the Shetland Quartet. The strength of White Nights is its sense of place and characterisation. Cleeves immerses the reader in the small community, ways of life, and landscape of the Shetland Isles. The characters are well penned and the relationships between them credible and compelling. The telling was a little too descriptive at times for my tastes, especially near the start, but Cleeves has a nice easy going style of storytelling that is pleasant to the eye....more

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Jan 24, 2009 Diane rated it 3 of 5 stars

After reading White Nights, the "second book in the Shetland Island Quartet", I wonder how the next books will hold a reader's interest without becoming repetitive and trite. I liked this story of Detective Jimmy Perez as he tries to unravel the mystery of a hanged man, stranger to Shetland, carrying no identification. Raven Black introduced Shetland in the frozen grip of winter; White Nights is set in summer, with local fishing boats and ferries at the mercy of ocean storms that create a differ...more

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Jun 14, 2010 Greg Perciak rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is the second installment in the Shetland Island (off the north coast of Scotland) series by this author. It's not a scary murder mystery. The author prefers to draw the reader's attention to the characters: Inspector Perez (yes, he's Scottish), his love interest and aspiring artist and single mother Fran Hunter (who found all the bodies in book one, Raven Black), and Bella Sinclair, the self-absorbed artist whom everyone loves to hate. The island, however, is the main character and the tit...more

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Mar 26, 2013 Marie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recently I read Raven Black, the first in Ann Cleeves' Shetland series. Overall I enjoyed it, but felt the characters and setting hadn't quite lived up to their potential. For me it felt very much like a promising introduction to a series rather than an outstanding mystery in its own right. I don't usually like to dive straight into the second book in a series but made an exception in this case. I was delighted that my suspicions were correct and that I found White Nights to be a much more satis...more Recently I read Raven Black, the first in Ann Cleeves' Shetland series. Overall I enjoyed it, but felt the characters and setting hadn't quite lived up to their potential. For me it felt very much like a promising introduction to a series rather than an outstanding mystery in its own right. I don't usually like to dive straight into the second book in a series but made an exception in this case. I was delighted that my suspicions were correct and that I found White Nights to be a much more satisfying read than its predecessor.

People like me who are unfamiliar with Shetland might tend to think of it as the cold, bleak place that is portrayed in Raven Black. In White Nights we are introduced to the other face of the islands, the interminable summer days when the sun barely even dips its head below the horizon. The locals have a difficult enough time adapting to this constant light every summer, so you can see how it could send a tourist close to crazy. When an English stranger turns up to an art exhibition in Biddista and behaves very bizarrely it is easy to assume the unique weather conditions have sent him a bit nutty. But later he is found hanged in a barn and Jimmy Perez suspects that something more sinister than suicide has occurred. To find all the answers he needs to look back years into the past and extend his search for clues much further than tiny Biddista itself.

I was totally gripped by this book and found it to have all the ingredients I love in a mystery. A relatively small cast of potential suspects, a mysterious stranger, a geniunely surprising conclusion that can only be solved by digging around in long-forgotten events of the past. Let me illustrate how engrossed I was: I was reading this at work on a Saturday in between answering calls on my bleep, and when the time came to go home it was actually an effort to put the book down and get in my car to leave!

We get a much better insight into Perez's character in this book and I found him to be an endearing protagonist. There is a quiet humility to the way he works that proves quite refreshing compared to the sort of super confident, suffer-no-fools detectives you often find in crime fiction. I was surprised to see the return of Taylor, the chief from the mainland, as he hadn't really captured my attention in the first book, but here the contrast between the two men's personalities worked well and I enjoyed seeing their working relationship develop.

Now I can't wait to read the next installment and find out what Perez's next challenge will be.(less)

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Jan 16, 2013 Evi rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is the second book in a series of four Ann Cleeve books that center around the Shetland Islands. While it was quite entertaining, I didn't feel she nailed this one as well as Raven Black. This story takes place in midsummer when everyone "goes a bit mad" from the never-ending daylight.

Another murder has occured and again Jimmy Perez is on the trail. As in Raven Black, Cleeve keeps you guessing until the last few pages. She makes the reader feel as though they are standing on the cliffs and...more

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Aug 16, 2012 Noora rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: dekkarit

Ei aivan yhtä hyvä kuin kirjailijan esikoinen, mutta ihan kelpo dekkari tämäkin. Ensimmäisessä kirjassa murhaajaa ei voinut mitenkään arvata, tässä juoni taas oli rakennettu samojen periaatteiden mukaan kuin ensimmäisessä, joten murhaaja oli helppo päätellä, vaikka motiivi olikin vaikeampi arvata. Lisäksi kirjoittajalla on tapa hyppiä hyvin nopeasti ajassa eteenpäin ja henkilöstä toiseen, joten lukijan on oltava melko tarkkana, jotta tietää missä ollaan menossa. Dekkareiden miljöö on kuitenkin s...more

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Sep 23, 2012 Lois rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: crime

This is the second of a series of books set in the Shetland Isles and featuring Jimmy Perez a detective.
A great read! It is not essential to read this quartet of books in order, and there are no spoilers for previous novels, however, I think it makes sense to read them in order so you are introduced to the characters in sequence...
I'm going to reread them all anyway... so many little clues and hints seeded through the text which I missed on my first galloping read, anxious to find the solution a...more

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Oct 29, 2010 Jessica Howard rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2010, mystery-british

It's official, I'm obsessed with these books by Ann Cleeves!She makes the Shetland Islands seem so real, Jimmy Perez is such a likeable detective, and for the 2nd time, I totally did not guess who the murderer was till right at the end. I love it when a book actually remains a "whodunit" for most of the book!

The title of this book comes from the White Nights or "simmer dim" of the Shetlands in the middle of summer--they're so far north that the sun never sets, and the constant light makes people...more

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Jun 05, 2012 Janebbooks rated it 4 of 5 stars

Long white nights of a Shetland Island summer....

A summer house party at The Manse, a large house at Biddista, with its tall thin church window that lights up the staircase of its two storeys. A masquerade ball hosted by the artist Bella Sinclair, a native of the Shetland Islands. A photo of male admirers who surround the artist clad in her signature red dress.

But that was fifteen years ago. Ann Cleeves opens her second Shetland Island mystery WHITE NIGHTS at The Herring House gallery with an a...more Long white nights of a Shetland Island summer....

A summer house party at The Manse, a large house at Biddista, with its tall thin church window that lights up the staircase of its two storeys. A masquerade ball hosted by the artist Bella Sinclair, a native of the Shetland Islands. A photo of male admirers who surround the artist clad in her signature red dress.

But that was fifteen years ago. Ann Cleeves opens her second Shetland Island mystery WHITE NIGHTS at The Herring House gallery with an art exhibition featuring works of local artists. The setting is a small fishing community near Lerwick, the capital and main port of the Shetland Islands. It's midsummer, called "summer dim" by the locals. A theatre ship The Motley Crew is moored near the end of the pier. Tourists stream ashore from cruise ships.

Jimmy Perez has returned from Fair Isle to head the police investigation of two murders. Roy Taylor, the Inverness detective, flies down to help. A stranger has been found hanging in the Biddista hut on the beach where the lads keep their fishing stuff. A folk musician is found at the bottom of the Pit o'Biddista, a great gouge of land near the shore.

Cleeves again weaves a strong sense of place into her thriller constantly describing the "bizarre, bleak, treeless" countryside. Several characters return from the award-winning RAVEN BLACK, the first of her Island mysteries. Interesting new personalities appear. Foremost is Bella Sinclair, mythic artist: "Wild in her youth...but now rather unapproachable, intimdating. And rich." Peter Wilding, a fantasy writer interested in the local Viking myths and the art of one Bella Sinclair. The crofter Kenny Thomson and his wife Edith. The chef at The Herring House, Martin Williamson, his wife Dawn, and his widowed mother, Aggie.

WHITE NIGHTS is a proper updated Golden Age murder mystery: well plotted, page-turning, limited but memorable characters and a satisfying ending. Next up is the third installment of The Shetland Island Quartet, Red Bones, set in the spring: a time of rebirth and celebration....

Come join me!
Jane (less)

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Mar 09, 2012 Michelle rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery

In this second novel of the Shetland Quartet, Jimmy Perez has been building his relationship with artist Fran. Set in the near endless light of summer, they attend an art showing where Fran's work is featured in a small village, home of the well known artist, Bella. When a stranger at the show claims to have amnesia, disappears, and is then discovered hanging in an outbuilding of a local farmer, Jimmy begins to investigate while waiting for the team to arrive from Inverness. He finds a complex t...more

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Dec 28, 2011 Paul Curd rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: first-edition, crime-and-mystery, fiction

A guest at the opening of a Shetland Isles art exhibition breaks down in tears as everyone else looks on in embarrassed horror. Jimmy Perez, on his first real date with one of the artists, Fran Hunter, helps the man to his feet, feeling it is his duty as a policeman to do so. The man, who is English, claims to have no memory of who he is or why he is there. Perez thinks that it has something to do with the light, the fact that the sun never quite slips below the horizon even at midnight. Here in...more A guest at the opening of a Shetland Isles art exhibition breaks down in tears as everyone else looks on in embarrassed horror. Jimmy Perez, on his first real date with one of the artists, Fran Hunter, helps the man to his feet, feeling it is his duty as a policeman to do so. The man, who is English, claims to have no memory of who he is or why he is there. Perez thinks that it has something to do with the light, the fact that the sun never quite slips below the horizon even at midnight. Here in the Shetlands they call it the 'simmer dim'. Everyone in the Shetlands goes a little crazy at this time of year. In the morning, though, the Englishman is found dead, hanging from the rafters of a fisherman's hut.

Who is the mysterious southerner? Why was he found with a clown's mask over his face? Why had he tried to ruin the art exhibition opening? More importantly, who strangled him and then tried to make the death look like a suicide? There are so many questions, but one thing is certain: there is a killer at large in the small island community of Biddista, and unless they are tracked down soon they will surely strike again.

At this point, the second of Ann Cleeves' quartet of Shetland crime novels follows a similar pattern of the first, with a team of detectives being flown in from Inverness to lead the investigation and local man Jimmy Perez having to play second fiddle to bluff Yorkshireman Roy Taylor. In the first book, Raven Black, the two very different detectives struck up an odd-couple kind of friendship. This time, though, the relationship between the two men is more strained.

In Raven Black I much admired the way Cleeves captured the physical 'feel' of the treeless Shetlands. In White Nights she seems to me to spend less time describing the physical terrain and is more involved in exploring the psychological landscape of Biddista, especially the complex relationships that develop in a small, remote community. The inchoate relationship between Jimmy Perez and Fran Hunter, neither of them entirely sure of themselves, is cleverly done, especially when Fran catches the eye of the intense English writer Peter Wilding. The interaction between quiet, thoughtful Perez and his brash and forthright colleague Taylor is similarly perfect in its evocation. But for me, the highlights of the book are the beautifully written chapters that tenderly capture the late-blooming marriage of Biddista residents Kenny and Edith Thomson.

This is the kind of crime writing I really enjoy: there's mystery and suspense, and a clever plot, but the strength of the book is in the characterisation and the quality of the prose. Like Ruth Rendell or P.D. James at their best, Cleeves gives you so much more than your average crime writer. Highly recommended.
(less)

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Jul 02, 2011 Bettie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: radio-4, summer-2011, mystery-thriller, britain-scotland, play-dramatisation

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Oct 06, 2008 Sunnie rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Everyone

Reading Ann Cleeves is a little like being an addict. You very quickly become hooked as Cleeves
drip-feeds background information of her characters in very measured doses. And you have to pay attention. Miss one piece of this information and you might miss a vital clue.

The protagonist, Jimmy Perez is a quiet thoughtful man, familiar with the Islands and the people. His boss D.I. Taylor, who flies in from Aberdeen for major cases is the opposite. He is unable to sit still and has a bull-at-a-gate...more

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About Ann Cleeves

Ann is the author of the books behind ITV's VERA, now in it's third series, and the BBC's SHETLAND, which will be aired in December 2012. Ann's DI Vera Stanhope series of books is set in Northumberland and features the well loved detective along with her partner Joe Ashworth. Ann's Shetland series bring us DI Jimmy Perez, investigating in the mysterious, dark, and beautiful Shetland Islands...

Ann...more Ann is the author of the books behind ITV's VERA, now in it's third series, and the BBC's SHETLAND, which will be aired in December 2012. Ann's DI Vera Stanhope series of books is set in Northumberland and features the well loved detective along with her partner Joe Ashworth. Ann's Shetland series bring us DI Jimmy Perez, investigating in the mysterious, dark, and beautiful Shetland Islands...

Ann grew up in the country, first in Herefordshire, then in North Devon. Her father was a village school teacher. After dropping out of university she took a number of temporary jobs - child care officer, women's refuge leader, bird observatory cook, auxiliary coastguard - before going back to college and training to be a probation officer.

While she was cooking in the Bird Observatory on Fair Isle, she met her husband Tim, a visiting ornithologist. She was attracted less by the ornithology than the bottle of malt whisky she saw in his rucksack when she showed him his room. Soon after they married, Tim was appointed as warden of Hilbre, a tiny tidal island nature reserve in the Dee Estuary. They were the only residents, there was no mains electricity or water and access to the mainland was at low tide across the shore. If a person's not heavily into birds - and Ann isn't - there's not much to do on Hilbre and that was when she started writing. Her first series of crime novels features the elderly naturalist, George Palmer-Jones. A couple of these books are seriously dreadful.

In 1987 Tim, Ann and their two daughters moved to Northumberland and the north east provides the inspiration for many of her subsequent titles. The girls have both taken up with Geordie lads. In the autumn of 2006, Ann and Tim finally achieved their ambition of moving back to the North East.

For the National Year of Reading, Ann was made reader-in-residence for three library authorities. It came as a revelation that it was possible to get paid for talking to readers about books! She went on to set up reading groups in prisons as part of the Inside Books project, became Cheltenham Literature Festival's first reader-in-residence and still enjoys working with libraries.
Ann Cleeves on stage at the Duncan Lawrie Dagger awards ceremony

Ann's short film for Border TV, Catching Birds, won a Royal Television Society Award. She has twice been short listed for a CWA Dagger Award - once for her short story The Plater, and the following year for the Dagger in the Library award.

In 2006 Ann Cleeves was the first winner of the prestigious Duncan Lawrie Dagger Award of the Crime Writers' Association for Raven Black, the first volume of her Shetland Quartet. The Duncan Lawrie Dagger replaces the CWA's Gold Dagger award, and the winner receives £20,000, making it the world's largest award for crime fiction.

Ann's success was announced at the 2006 Dagger Awards ceremony at the Waldorf Hilton, in London's Aldwych, on Thursday 29 June 2006. She said: "I have never won anything before in my life, so it was a complete shock - but lovely of course.. The evening was relatively relaxing because I'd lost my voice and knew that even if the unexpected happened there was physically no way I could utter a word. So I wouldn't have to give a speech. My editor was deputed to do it!"

The judging panel consisted of Geoff Bradley (non-voting Chair), Lyn Brown MP (a committee member on the London Libraries service), Frances Gray (an academic who writes about and teaches courses on modern crime fiction), Heather O'Donoghue (academic, linguist, crime fiction reviewer for The Times Literary Supplement, and keen reader of all crime fiction) and Barry Forshaw (reviewer and editor of Crime Time magazine).

Ann's books have been translated into sixteen languages. She's a bestseller in Scandinavia and Germany. Her novels sell widely and to critical acclaim in the United States. Raven Black was shortlisted for the Martin Beck award for best translated crime novel in Sweden in 200(less)

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White Nights (Shetland Quartet #2)

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