Ann Cleeves: The British Author Of The Books That Inspired Vera and Shetland

The Final Season Of Vera Airs This Month

January 4th, 2025: In honor of the final season of Vera, I’ve removed the paywall on this earlier OMITI edition in case you missed it. You can watch Vera, as well as the current season of Shetland, on Britbox and Prime Video in the States, Mexico, and most of Africa and South America; Sky TV in Ireland; Apple TV in Canada and Australia; Acorn TV and AMC+ in New Zealand; and on ITVX worldwide. Be sure to check out the trailers below.

Ann Cleeves creates memorable detectives in the most breathtaking scenery imaginable. The rugged cliffs and gray skies in Shetland, rolling pastures and craggy coastlines in Northumberland, beautiful countryside and thick forests in Norfolk — these locations are an essential part of her storytelling.

Cleeves possesses an exceptional ability to mold characters who are complex and relatable. She’s invented two of the most notable detectives in modern fiction with Detective Chief Inspector Vera Stanhope and Detective Inspector Jimmy Perez. These two book series are also successful ITV television shows (available on Britbox in the States).

Cleeves has won numerous prestigious awards and several honorary degrees. In 2017, Cleeves was awarded the Diamond Dagger Award, the highest honor in British crime fiction. She was given an OBE in the 2022 New Year Honours List for her “service to reading and libraries.” Her novels have been translated into twenty languages and she continues to be a best-selling crime fiction author to a worldwide audience.

In addition, her love of the Scottish Shetland isles has opened doors for the small community of Shetland by increasing tourism thanks to the success of her books and the television show. In addition to putting the isles on the map, Cleeves also just officially launched Shetland Noir, a new annual literary crime festival held in Shetland every summer.

This is my favorite Ann Cleeves story: When she was first married, she and her husband Tim, an ornithologist, were living alone in a tiny tidal island nature reserve in the Dee Estuary for his work. They were the only two people on the island and went without mains electricity and water. They could only cross over to the mainland at low tide. Because her husband spent the majority of his time working, Cleeves, feeling isolated and bored, decided to take up writing. Through her novels, she was able to kill off plenty of characters, including an ornithologist, and, as she likes to say, “that saved my marriage.”

Here’s a comprehensive list of all works by Ann Cleeves, including adaptations for television. If you want to start with her books, begin with Vera. If you want to start with television, begin with Shetland.

Vera Stanhope Books

The caustic but tenacious Vera Stanhope is considered one of the most memorable detectives in modern crime fiction. The Detective Chief Inspector solves complex murder cases in Northumberland.

When writing the first Vera novel, The Crow Trap, Cleeves became stuck. She hadn’t outlined the book and was suffering from a serious case of writer’s block. This was prior to the idea of Vera, when she wasn’t even sure if she wanted a professional detective in her novel. Then she remembered something she’d read. Cleeves explains, “Raymond Chandler once said, ‘if you’re ever writing and you get stuck, have a guy bust through a door with a gun.’ I don’t do guns, but I thought it would be interesting to have a door fly open and see who came through…and that’s when Vera Stanhope walked in.”

1. The Crow Trap (1999)

2. Telling Tales (2005)

3. Hidden Depths (2007)

4. Silent Voices (2010)

5. The Glass Room (2012)

6. Harbour Street (2014)

7. The Moth Catcher (2015)

8. The Seagull (2017)

9. Frozen, a short story (2020)

10. The Darkest Evening (2020)

11. The Rising Tide (2022)

12. The Dark Wives (2024)

Vera Television Series

Award-winning and critically-acclaimed actress Brenda Blethyn stars as DCI Vera Stanhope, the sarcastic and sharp witted detective who takes on criminals in Northumberland. The television show just launched series thirteen in the UK. Fans are excited for the return of her much-loved sidekick DI Ashworth, played by David Leon, in this newest season. His character left after series four but is returning and replacing Aiden Healy (Kenny Doughty) in the current season of the show.

Best Vera Episodes

One of the great things about Vera is each episode is a stand alone, so the time investment isn’t quite as demanding as Shetland. Here are some of the strongest episodes of the series.

Season 3, Episode 1 - “Castles In The Air”

Season 4, Episode 1 - “On Harbour Street”

Season 5, Episode 4 - “Shadows In The Sky”

Season 7, Episode 1 - “Natural Selection”

Season 8, Episode 2 - “Black Ice”

Season 8, Episode 3 - “Home”

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Shetland Books

The evocative atmosphere of the Scottish Shetland Isles lends itself to the haunting world Cleeves creates for her Detective Inspector Perez series as much as her detectives do. In a community of fewer than twenty-five thousand, DI Perez and his colleagues find themselves uncovering secrets and tracking down killers in a community where everyone knows everyone else and suspects aren’t far from home.

1. Raven Black (2006)

2. White Nights (2008)

3. Red Bones (2009)

4. Blue Lightning (2010)

5. Dead Water (2013)

6. Thin Air (2014)

7. Too Good To Be True novella (2016)

8. Cold Earth (2016)

9. Wild Fire (2018)

Book images courtesy of MacMillan Publishers. Photos courtesy of Britbox and ITV.

Shetland Television Series

The easiest way to get drawn into the world of Ann Cleeves and her stories is by watching the television series Shetland. The series is best viewed in chronological order because each series contains one mystery; it’s necessary to watch an entire season in order to arrive at answers and unmask the killer. The journey is rewarding, though, and well worth viewing from beginning to end.

Douglas Henshall plays Detective Inspector Jimmy Perez, arguably one of the most beloved characters in a mystery series since Inspector Morse. His black peacoat and windswept hair have become the equivalent of Sherlock Holmes’s pipe and deerstalker. Although the television show deviated from the book series in casting Henshall, who looks nothing like the description of Perez from the novels, even Cleeves points out that no one else could embody her detective as Henshall does.

The show deviates from the books in two more significant ways, with one being the shifted timeline of DI Perez’s personal life. Without spoiling character development or storylines, know that the television series introduces Perez at a different stage of his life than the books do.

The second way the show differs from the novels is with the addition of a salient sidekick, the Watson for DI Perez. Screenwriter David Kane created fan favorite DS Alison McIntosh (played by Alison O’Donnell) who doesn’t appear in the books. Speaking to the BBC, he explained, “The biggest consideration when adapting a novel for TV is to get the essence of the story the writer wanted to get across even if you have to change certain parts of the plot. I created a new character, Tosh, to work with Perez in the hope the warmth of their relationship would counterbalance the darkness of the story.”

Douglas Henshall left after series seven, with Ashley Jensen stepping in as reluctant London detective Ruth Calder. In series eight, DI Calder returns home to Shetland to solve a case. She joins Tosh in tracking a missing witness to a murder on a trail that leads to dire consequences.

Best Shetland Series

If you can’t commit to viewing all eight seasons (beginning with series three, an entire season is six episodes) here are the ones I recommend most:

Season 3, Episodes 1-6 - A young guy mysteriously vanishes during the Aberdeen to Shetland ferry crossing. The investigation leads to bigger questions once Perez starts digging, and soon he’s investigating more than a random disappearance. If you only watch one season, make it this one.

Season 6, Episodes 1-6 - When a prominent Shetlander with plenty of enemies is murdered, Perez has to track down the killer. As he and Tosh peel back the layers of deceit and fraud in their small community, the mystery grows more complex than they even imagined.

Season 8, Episodes 1-6 - DI Ruth Calder, a native Shetlander, reluctantly returns to the isles to help track down a missing girl involved in a London murder investigation. Many Shetland fans might disagree with this recommendation with the loss of Henshall being such a hard pill to swallow, but I stand by it. Ashley Jensen and Alison O’Donnell are fantastic and the plot has twists and turns that are in keeping with the show’s consistently well-written mysteries.

The newest season of Shetland is currently airing in the States on Britbox. Here’s a look:

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Two Rivers Books

In her latest series, Ann Cleeves introduces readers to Detective Matthew Venn. The first novel has been turned into a BritBox four episode limited series of the same name, The Long Call. Her most recent Venn novel, The Raging Storm, has been met with critical acclaim and is one of her most popular books to date.

1. The Long Call (2019)

2. The Heron’s Cry (2021)

3. The Raging Storm (2023)

Inspector Ramsay Books

The Inspector Ramsay series, like the DCI Vera Stanhope books, takes place in the English county of Northumberland. Inspector Ramsay is insightful and determined but obviously a precursor to her more famous and nuanced detectives that come later, Stanhope and Perez.

1. A Lesson In Dying (1990)

2. Murder In My Backyard (1991)

3. A Day in the Death of Dorothea Cassidy (1992)

4. Killjoy (1993)

5. The Healers (1995)

6. The Baby Snatcher (1997)

Palmer-Jones Books

Elderly couple George and Molly Palmer-Jones spend the majority of their time seeing the English countryside in Norfolk while bird-watching and quickly get caught up in several mysteries. Cleeves herself has said a few in this series are “simply dreadful” (but without specifying which ones). The first book in this series was her debut novel and marks the beginning of her career as an author.

1. A Bird in the Hand (1986)

2. Come Death And High Water (1988)

3. Murder In Paradise (1988)

4. A Prey To Murder (1989)

5. Another Man’s Poison (1992)

6. Sea Fever (1993)

7. The Mill On The Shore (1994)

8. High Island Blues (1996)

Stand Alone Novels

1. The Sleeping and the Dead (2001)

2. Burial of Ghosts (2003)

3. Offshore, a collection of short stories (2014)

4. The Starlings and Other Stories (2015)

You can see the full list of the other contributions to various short story collections and one-offs on the official Ann Cleeves website. The latest Vera novel is available now at bookstores everywhere and your local library.

After you read and watch: Learn more about the Scottish Shetland Isles on their official website.

Song of the Day: “Shetland” by John Lunn