The Dark Wives by Ann Cleeves

 

Dear friends.  DCI Vera Stanhope is back, and searching for a troubled teenager who may have murdered a fellow resident in her care home. 

As always from Ann Cleeves, it's a complex, well constructed and eerie thriller. 

It's my turn on the blog tour for The Dark Wives. 

Publisher's Description

The man’s body is found in the early morning light by a local dog walker on the common outside Rosebank, a care home for troubled teens. The victim is Josh, a staff member, who was due to work the previous night but never showed up. DCI Vera Stanhope is called out to investigate the death. Her only clue is the disappearance of one of the home’s residents, fourteen-year-old Chloe Spence. Vera can’t bring herself to believe that a teenager is responsible for the murder, but even she can’t dismiss the possibility.

Vera, Joe and new team member Rosie Bell are soon embroiled in the case, and when a second connected body is found near the Three Dark Wives standing stones in the wilds of the Northumbrian countryside, superstition and folklore begin to collide with fact. 

Vera knows she has to find Chloe to get to the truth, but it seems that the dark secrets in their community may be far more dangerous than she could ever have believed possible.

My Thoughts

This is my first introduction to DCI Vera Stanhope, as I've never read the previous books or seen the TV series. 

I gradually got to know Vera as the story unfolded, and found her quite fascinating. But along with her team, I was frustrated by her tendency to keep everything to herself. 

It was good to see a book delving into the care system, which, as we've read in the news many times, is fraught with challenges.  People make assumptions about the children who find themselves placed in a home, for whatever reason.

As we neared the end, I felt as confused as the two team members who didn't seem to know what they were supposed to do to find Chloe. Vera hasn't shared her belief about the perpetrator's identity at this stage, which illustrates her difficulty in being a true team player.  This increased the tension because the actual reveal was hard to predict,

The witch hunt event will make superb TV, full of darkness, costumes and terrors.  

I enjoyed the plot and getting to know Vera. 

About the Author

ANN CLEEVES is the author of 37 critically acclaimed novels, an international bestseller translated into over 20 languages worldwide. In 2017 was awarded the highest accolade in crime writing, the CWA Diamond Dagger. She is the creator of popular detectives Vera Stanhope, Jimmy Perez and Matthew Venn, who can be found on television in ITV’s Vera, BBC One’s Shetland and ITV's The Long Call respectively. The TV series and the books they are based on have become international sensations, capturing the minds of millions worldwide.

Ann worked as a probation officer, bird observatory cook and auxiliary coastguard before she started writing. She is a member of ‘Murder Squad’, working with other British northern writers to promote crime fiction. Ann also spends her time advocating for reading to improve health and wellbeing and supporting access to books. In 2021 her Reading for Wellbeing project launched with local authorities across the North East, and in 2022 she was awarded an OBE for her services to reading and libraries. The Dark Wives, is her 11th Vera novel. 

She lives in Northumberland where the Vera books are set. You can find Ann on Twitter and Facebook @AnnCleeves.

I hope my review has piqued your interest for The Dark Wives.  Thanks to Anne Cater from Random Things Tours, the author and publisher Pan Macmillan for the advance copy in return for an honest review.

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