Telling Tales (Vera Stanhope, 2)

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Sitting at the bedroom window, Emma looks out at the night-time square. The wind rattles a roof tile and hisses out from the churchyard, spitting a Coke can onto the street. There was a gale the afternoon Abigail Mantel died and it seems to Emma that it’s been windy ever since, that there have been ten years of storms, of hailstones like bullets blown against her windows and trees ripped from the earth by their roots. It must be true at least since the baby was born. Since then, whenever she wakes at night – to feed the baby or when James comes in late from work – the noise of the wind is there, rolling round her head like the sound of a seashell when you hold it to your ear.

Was everything all right this evening?’ she asked to soften the rejection. ‘It’s been so windy. I imagine you out there in the dark, the waves so high.’She lives in Whitley Bay, [1] and is widowed with two daughters. [4] Honours, awards, and media appearances [ edit ] a b c Lobb, Adrian (19 March 2013). "Ann Cleeves interview for Shetland". The Telegraph . Retrieved 24 May 2016.

Exciting, right? That is not even the best news yet! The spectacular news is that Seagull, the eighth book in the series, will be on shelves this September, and it is the first of the series to be released in the USA and the UK simultaneously. So I get to read it at exactly the same time as my friends in Belfast! It’ll be nice for you to be so close to your parents,’ he’d said and she’d smiled and agreed, because that was what she did with James. She liked to please him. In fact she didn’t much care for Robert and Mary’s company. Despite all the help they offered, they made her feel uncomfortable and for some reason guilty.

In July 2022, Cleeves was awarded an honorary D.Litt. from Newcastle University for services to reading and libraries. [11] Bibliography [ edit ] Palmer-Jones [ edit ] Because a new witness had just come forward. It seems Jeanie Long couldn’t have murdered that lass.’ He paused. Emma watched him rub his forehead with his broad, stubby fingers. It was as if he was trying to rub away the exhaustion. She wondered why he cared so deeply about a ten-year-old murder case. She could tell that he did care, that he had lain awake worrying about it. But he hadn’t even been living in the village then. He dropped his hands from his face. No traces of clay were left on his skin. He must have washed his hands before leaving the forge. ‘Shame no one bothered to tell Jeanie, huh?’ he said. ‘Or she might still be alive.’ A riveting read. Ann Cleeves probes beneath the surface of a community to reveal the darkness that can fester when everyone thinks they know each other's secrets" It was easterly,’ he said. ‘On shore. Helping us in.’ He smiled fondly at her and she was pleased that she had said the right thing. She wanted to shout at him, Of course I know. I know more about this case than you ever could. But she just looked at him.

Seeing them together, it occurred to her how different they were. Dan was so dark that he should have been a foreigner. He could play the villain in a gothic melodrama. And James was a pale, polite Englishman. She felt suddenly anxious about the two men meeting, though there was no reason. It wasn’t as if Dan could guess at her fantasies. She had done nothing to give herself away. Carefully, she raised the sash window so she could hear their words. The curtains billowed. There was wind in the room with a taste of salt on it. She felt like a child listening in to an adult conversation, a parent and teacher, perhaps, discussing her academic progress. Neither of the men had seen her.Ten years ago fifteen-year-old Abigail Mantel was murdered, her cold body discovered lying in a ditch. Her father's girlfriend was found guilty of the crime. Now, evidence has emerged that proves her innocence and means that Abigail's killer still roams free. Jeanie Long committed suicide. She’d been turned down for parole again. It happened a couple of days ago. They kept it quiet over the weekend.’

That was what she told herself, but the words ran meaninglessly through her head. She was trying to fend off the panic which had been building since she had heard the men talking on the square, growing like a huge wave which rises from nothing out at sea.She had imagined nothing of the sort. Not tonight. When she had first met him she had dreamed of him out on the dark sea. Somehow now, the romance had gone out of it. Val McDermid Millions will be familiar with Brenda Blethyn’s portrayal of Vera in the television series of the same name but Cleeves’ engaging prose provides a much deeper, subtler insight into an intriguing and likeable character Cleeves was born in Herefordshire and brought up in north Devon where she attended Barnstaple Grammar School; [2] she studied English at the University of Sussex but dropped out and then took up various jobs, including cook at the Fair Isle bird observatory, auxiliary coastguard, probation officer, library outreach worker and child care officer. [3] Personal life [ edit ]