Telling Tales (Vera Stanhope, 2)

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As there were a couple of characters in each of those categories I sometimes lost track of which crotchety, naive hooligan was speaking. He and Vera end up making an unlikely friendship I thought with him doing what he could to help her out on the case, and Vera trying to not get too irritated with him. 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. Given that the second murder is investigated under the authority of the the Yorkshire force and Vera has a tendency to rub people up the wrong way, DS Joe Ashworth comes in handy as a foil to extract information in their tremendous double act. Both misfits in their own way, Emma longed for escape to the Old Chalet and Abigail’s glamorous lifestyle with her widowed and charismatic father, Keith.

Excellently written and thought out in each detail with the characters playing their parts on the surface and uncovering their darker sides beneath. I note that the publisher tries a couple of other narrators, and eventually settles on a possible winner around book four. 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. She feels her way into the complexities of a situation and perceptively picks up on hostilities and lies. Ten years later a witness has come forward who saw her in London on the day of the killing; too late, however, for Jeanie has hanged herself in prison.Cleeves’ novels never fail to engage, marked out by subtle characterisation and a cunning that sees her extruding hidden passions, historic resentments and simmering frustrations.

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.

I am afraid that even when Vera headed me in the right general direction I still picked the wrong individual as the guilty party. Ann Cleeves is manna from heaven for nosy readers everywhere and Detective Inspector Vera Stanhope is a pleasure to watch in action as she blusters onto a crime scene with her brusque line in questioning, scruffy attire and curious ability to make herself comfortable, even when she is an unwilling intruder. If The Crow Trap was the perfect teaser for Vera Stanhope, then Telling Tales cements her as one of Britain’s most popular modern detectives. As this was Vera’s first full appearance, I found myself mainly focusing on her traits and mannerisms.