Small towns keep their secrets ... | Raven Black: Book One of the Shetland Island Quartet

Has lingered for weeks | Raven Black: Book One of the Shetland Island Quartet | Ann Cleeves

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	• Raven Black: Book One of the Shetland Island Quartet Ann Cleeves St. Martin's Minotaur, 2008 - 384 pages average customer review:based on 12 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

very good read

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, mostly for the character depictions, and descriptions of Shetland Island living. The murder itself was unexpected for such a small place. A young life was snuffed out for no apparent reason and the tiny police department had it's work cut out for itself. Detective Perez proved to be a determined, intelligent, warmly human person. The other characters were all fleshed out equably well. I would recommend this book for any mystery lover who also enjoys reading about different areas and people.

Small towns keep their secrets ...

Fran Hunter had moved to Ravenswick in the Shetland Islands not only because it would allow her daughter and her ex-husband to get to know each other, but also but it was a safer place to raise a child than London. Or at least that's what she believed before she found the body lying in the field below Magnus Tait's house.

Inspector Jimmy Perez knows many of the locals but his training leads him to believe that the most likely suspect isn't necessarily the killer and he keeps digging when the townspeople are convinced they know who's guilty. When the mainland sends up the forensic team, Perez finds an unlikely ally in DI Taylor. The clues seem to point everywhere and nowhere as the investigation moves slowly to a conclusion.

This isn't one of those books where the action pulls you along reading and turning pages at a furious rate to keep up with the rush to justice. Raven Black doesn't plod, it spirals about the people and the culture of Ravenswick and the Shetlands, weaving a picture of a people with a rich cultural heritage and pride who have often closed ranks against outsiders. Everyone knows everyone and their business, their secrets, and their history. Here that knowledge can be a hindrance because what everyone knows or believes may not necessarily be the truth. Even in small towns secrets can be kept and crimes hidden by the simple expedient of keeping silent.

Cleeves draws the reader into the lives of the residents of this small island town and allows us time to get to know some of their secrets and passions, their public and private faces. We draw conclusions and find that some are challenged and some may only be slightly shaken as more data becomes available, for there's enough confusion, prejudice, resentment, and misdirection to keep any reader on their guard as the story unfolds.

It's the interconnectedness of the characters, major and minor, that add verisimilitude to the story. This isn't just a mystery, it's a psychological study of groups and individuals in a setting that leaves little room for those who are different or stand out from others.

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Has lingered for weeks

Ann Cleeves' spare prose is so precise in it's imagery that the setting and characters will stay with you for weeks. By undressing our casual inhumanities, she demonstrates a great depth of understanding about the feelings and thoughts that propel us onward...which is the reason we read crime stories, isn't it? I hope we will see more of this protagonist and the Shetlands.

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Skillfully plotted; well written

I recently savored Raven Black by Ann Cleeves (now there's a compaction of historic names); mighty tasty indeed. Set in the Shetland Islands of today with concomitant fascinating historical, geographic and sociological detail, skillfully plotted, well written. The spouse is reading it now and gets grumpy when I ask him anything.

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Winner of Britain?s coveted Duncan Lawrie Dagger Award, Ann Cleeves introduces a dazzling new suspense series to U.S. mystery readers.

Raven Black begins on New Year?s Eve with a lonely outcast named Magnus Tait, who stays home waiting for visitors who never come. But the next morning the body of a murdered teenage girl is discovered nearby, and suspicion falls on Magnus. Inspector Jimmy Perez enters an investigative maze that leads deeper into the past of the Shetland Islands than anyone wants to go.