Tangled Web UK Review January 2010
Blue Lightning by
Anne Cleeves
hbk out February 10
Published by Macmillan
at £16.99
Billed as the final instalment of ‘the Shetland Quartet’, this latest
outing for that admirable cop Jimmy Perez sees him returning with his beloved
Fran to his native Fair Isle. An atmosphere of claustrophobia and menace is established
right away as their small plane suddenly drops down, and the mood becomes even
more intense once a woman is murdered on the island.- with feathers threaded through
her hair.
The victim is Angela, a scientist and well-known expert on ornithology, who is
married to the much older Maurice; between them, the couple ran the island’s
field centre. We are confronted with a classic ‘closed circle’ mystery
– the killer must be one of a limited number of suspects on the island,
and it falls to Jimmy to find out who has killed Angela and why. But the case
is complex, and others will die before the culprit is unmasked. Ann Cleeves won
the CWA Gold Dagger for the first book n the Shetland series, Raven
Black, but this impressive book is, to my mind, even better. The
ending is poignant and unforgettable, and the novel as a whole is the work of
a major writer at the height of her powers.
(
Martin Edwards
- author of the highly acclaimed Harry Devlin Mysteries)
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