More about The Long Call
More about The Heron's Cry
Two Rivers #2.5, a Matthew Venn novella
More about The Raging Storm
More about The Dying Light
The brightest light casts the darkest shadow ...
Best-selling crime writer Ann Cleeves has revealed that her next book - coming in autumn 2026 - will be a return to North Devon and a new mystery for Detective Matthew Venn.
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.
Read what Ann told subscribers to her newsletter about how the book came about.
Helping to bring The Woodyard to life
If you are already a fan of Ann Cleeves' Matthew Venn stories, you probably recognised the name 'The Woodyard', the combination of community hub, arts centre, café, and place for people to meet and explore ideas where Matthew Venn's husband Jonathan works. Ann is delighted to be supporting a project to set up a real life Woodyard, and she has donated the chance for a lucky reader to be part of it too!
In the spring of 2024, Ann auctioned the naming rights for a character in her next Matthew Venn novel; the highest bid was for £1,510 and the highest bidder was Karin Kinzalow. Proceeds raised go towards The Woodyard project, a community-led venture underway in Barnstaple, North Devon. With Ann's support, the local community is on a mission to create a real-life community hub based on the fictional 'Woodyard' described in The Long Call.
Ann explains a bit more about the Woodyard project, what it is and why she is supporting it...
Introducing Matthew Venn...
Detective Matthew Venn stands outside the church as his father's funeral takes place. Once loved and cherished, the day Matthew left the strict evangelical community he grew up in, he lost his family too.
Now, as he turns and walks away again, he receives a call from one of his team. A body has been found on the beach nearby: a man with a tattoo of an albatross on his neck, stabbed to death. The case calls Matthew back into the community he thought he had left behind, as deadly secrets hidden at its heart are revealed, and his past and present collide.
The Long Call won the Agatha Award for Best Contemporary Novel published in 2019. It was chosen by the Library Journal as one of their crime books of the year, and the Japanese translation Aiseki (Lamentation) was shortlisted for the Best Mystery Fiction in Translation award by the Mystery Writers of Japan.
More about The Long Call.
Ann introduces the characters - and the landscape - of the Two Rivers series of Matthew Venn mysteries:
As seen on TV
A four-part adaptation of The Long Call was broadcast in the UK in the autumn of 2021: it remains available on itvX. In the US, the series was streamed on Britbox. Matthew Venn was (played by Ben Aldridge (Our Girl, Fleabag) and his colleague Jen Rafferty (Pearl Mackie, best known for her work in Doctor Who, where she played the role of the Doctor's companion, Bill Potts, opposite Peter Capaldi). The supporting cast includes award-winning actress Juliet Stevenson (Truly Madly, Deeply) as Matthew's mother Dorothy.
Ann says: "I can't think of anyone who could play Matthew Venn better than Ben Aldridge. He will bring an authenticity and commitment to the rôle. I always hoped that the actor chosen would come from Devon, where the books are set, and he does."