I was looking for a new author to follow and wandering through Waterstones' website came across Anne Cleeves. I had not watched Vera or Shetland on television which was a good thing because I wanted to use my own imagination to create my own versions of the characters that the author had created. I had seen trailers for Vera and so I chose The Shetland Series. I have now read the first 4 books and was left bereft when I reached the end of "Blue Lightning". My wife of 52 years died 18 months ago and "I'm fine" doesn't cover all events. I've read a lot during shielding and was beginning to believe that authors aim to obfuscate. I imagine there is a large spiders web of names, places and connections plastered across a wall in their writing room. They can't rely on their memory to keep every interlocking event coherent. Setting a series of books in Shetland has simple advantages, there is a sparse population and isolated islands. Coupled with an easy sentence construction and the ability to set the scene with words and betray a character with a phrase has made these books a godsend. I have just ordered the remaining 3 books in The Shetland Series.

The first ann cleeves book I read was the quick reads shetland book. I enjoyed it so I tried the shetland books and then immediately read the vera books. I had put off reading her books for a long time as I though they may be too bleak for me. Instead I found them fascinating and a joy to read. I won't give any plots away as I don't normally like doing that. These are very impressive books. The writing is brilliant. And like my favourite crime writers such as Agatha Christie or j k Rowling's strike novels it's all about character, atmosphere and intriguing plots. The shetland books are fascinating. A great lead detective surrounded by good supporting characters with solid plots and a magnificent backdrop in the locations. I'm not as familiar with the shetland locations as I am with the vera books locations but I do know some and it's nice to see places I know in these books. These are deliberately slow paced novels. Characters are introduced and their lives are picked over to reveal the clues. Perez is a good character who goes through quite a lot over the course of the books. I thoroughly enjoyed the series and have to say I am impressed that cleeves has ended the shetland books. The vera stories have a large geographical area for murders to be committed whereas the shetland books could become silly if they continued. How many murders would be believable on a relatively small set of islands before you have to twin shetland with midsummer! I would be happy if she did return to these books occasionally but I'm very happy with the ones we have. A great series.

Great book, great series.