The brightest light casts the darkest shadow ...
Coming soon, a new book from best-selling crime writer Ann Cleeves: and it will be a return to North Devon and a new mystery for Detective Matthew Venn. So Ann is packung her bags to visit the West Country, where she grew up, to meet readers and booksellers there. Ann is a long-time supporter of independent dookshops, so she is delighted that UK publisher Pan MacMillan have designed this beautiful ecition exclusively for sale in independent bookshops. If you can't get to any of her events, you can still support your local indie bookshop and ask them to order a copy; follow this link for some useful addresses - or use the link in the menu to order a signed copy.
Venn is called in to investigate a puzzling death. The body of a young woman has been found in the swimming pool of Tide House, a luxurious holiday home in North Devon, and her best friend is missing. The property belongs to rising political star Paul Armstrong and the case quickly draws intense media scrutiny.
As a scorching heat wave rages and further tragedy strikes, Venn and his team begin questioning a community brimming with secrets. The dead woman and her friend had been spotted at a nearby music festival the day before, an event which brought locals and outsiders together - some of whom may have been more connected with the Armstrongs than first thought.
Caught between a powerful family's secrets and a powder keg of local tensions, Venn must navigate a treacherous path. Knowing that the real answers lie not in what people say, but in the silence that they keep ...
More about The Dying Light.
"Everything Ann Cleeves writes is incredible"
Richard Osman, author of 'The Thursday Murder Club'
An Unexpected Bestseller - and other classics
Ann posted to FaceBook: "This is mind-blowing. First published in 1992, Dorothea Cassidy is back in the Sunday Times top ten after a brilliant reprint by the Pan Macmillan team. First print run was tiny and only went into libraries and indie bookshops. Thanks to all librarians and booksellers!"
Before Vera Stanhope, Ann's first series set in Vera's county of Northumberland features Inspector Stephen Ramsay: With the summer carnival underway in the small town of Otterbridge, Inspector Ramsay begins a painstaking investigation. He discovers that Dorothea had taken on a number of deserving cases, including a sick and lonely old woman, a disturbed adolescent and a compulsive gambler. Now these people are haunted, in one way or another, by Dorothea's goodness. And even her immediate family have secrets to hide. But which of them could possibly have wanted her dead?
It's not until a second body is discovered that Ramsay starts to understand how Dorothea lived - and why she died. With the carnival festivities in full swing and dusk falling, Ramsay's murder investigation reaches its chilling climax...
A Day in the Death of Dorothea Cassidy is just the latest of Ann Cleeves's classic crime novels to become easier to find than they used to be. A series of temptong new editions from Pan Macmillan started in 2023 with two stunning standalone mysteries, The Sleeping and the Dead and Burial of Ghosts. Book Break guides you through the books of Ann Cleeves: maybe you've read all of the Shetland books, but didn't know about Ann's standalone titles. Or maybe you'd like to read some short stories next, or are curious about very first detective series, featuring George Palmer-Jones, an elderly birdwatcher - helped by his wife, Molly, starting with A Bird in the Hand.
The return of Jimmy Perez
Out now - already available in paperback on the US - an exciting new mystery for long-time favourite detective DI Jimmy Perez! Readers said a sad goodbye to Jummy at the end of Wild Fire when he left the Shetland islands to make a new life with partner Willow Reeves and the baby they were expecting. Jimmy's many fans have been wondering how they were getting on - and so, it seems, has Ann! To find out, she weote a standalone novel, The Killing Stones, published on autumn 2025.
As Ann explained in her new newsletter, "I'd thought I'd finished writing about Perez after Wild Fire, the last of the Shetland books, but he's become a part of my life again. I'd felt a longing to return north in my writing, a kind of homesickness for the islands. Wild Fire ended with a trip to Fair Isle, before the central characters flew on to their new home in Orkney. It occurred to me that I could move with them too. After all, I thought, why not?"
More about The Killing Stones here - or read more about Shetland: the tv series and the books.
A local myth. A deadly threat. And the final Vera
Vera Stanhope returns to her beloved hills to solve a suspenseful mystery in Ann Cleeves' eleventh VERA novel. The Dark Wives, now available in paperback in both the UK and the US.
A man's body is found in the early morning light by a local dog walker in the park outside Rosebank, a care home for troubled teens in the coastal village of Longwater. The victim is Josh, a staff member, who was due to work the previous night but never showed up.
DI Vera Stanhope is called out to investigate the death. Her only clue in this, her eleventh case. 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, which takes Vera back to her beloved Northumberland hills, and when a second connected body is found near the Three Dark Wives monument in the wilds of the Northumberland countryside, superstition and folklore begin to collide with fact. Vera knows she has to find Chloe to get to the truth, and the dark secrets in their community that may be far more dangerous than she could have ever believed possible.
Ann has already warned readers that the next Vera Stanhope book will be the last. Speaking at at the Royal Television Society awards ceremony on 15th February 2025, at which she and actor Brenda Blethyn received Outstanding Contribution honours for the "phenomenon" that is a VERA, she said: "There will be one more Vera novel after The Dark Wives. I want to bring the series to a natural end." Now Pan MacMilan have confirmed that the next Vera Stanhope book will be the last: the final Vera. It will be piblished in October 2027, and will take Vera to Ann's home turf of Whitley Bay, to investigate the murder of a local woman - and a reckoning with the legacy of the town's criminal past...
More about The Dark Wives - and about all things Vera - in print and on TV - here.
"Like Rendell and James before her, like McDermid and Rankin today, Ann Cleeves is one of our secret chroniclers, charting - under cover of a series of expertly plotted and mesmerising crime novels - how we live now"
Mick Herron, author of 'Slow Horses'
"I do love Vera!"
Val McDermid
A Champion for Libraries
Award-winning novelist Ann Cleeves has been an outspoken advocate for public libraries throughout her career; she was a worthy first recipient of the new Public Library Champion award. This has been established to recognise a public figure who has used their platform to promote, celebrate and raise awareness of libraries. Ann says "Delighted to pick up my Public Library Champion Award last week at the Libraries Connected 2024 Awards Ceremony. Met some great people too. Without libraries, I wouldn't be a writer. There'd be no Vera or Shetland on our screens, selling all over the world and bringing money and tourists into our country. More importantly, I probably wouldn't be a reader."
In true Agatha Christie style, Cleeves once again pulls the wool over our eyes with cunning and conviction
Colin Dexter
A most satisfying mystery set in an isolated and intriguing location
Peter Robinson
Ann Cleeves is a participant in the Amazon EU Associates Programme, an affiliate advertising programme designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.co.uk.
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Last update: 5th September 2026.