ANN CLEEVES' PAGE: Jimmy Perez/Shetland series 5 through 8...reposting old reviews

DEAD WATER
ANN CLEEVES
Minotaur Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$11.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Ann Cleeves returns to her critically acclaimed Shetland Island series with this stunning mystery featuring Inspector Jimmy Perez, who readers will remember from Raven Black, White Nights, Red Bones, and Blue Lightning. When the body of a journalist is found, Detective Inspector Willow Reeves is drafted from outside to head up the investigation. Inspector Jimmy Perez has been out of the loop, but his local knowledge is needed in this case, and he decides to help Willow. The dead journalist had left the islands years before to pursue his writing career. In his wake, he left a scandal involving a young girl. When Willow and Jimmy dig deeper, they realize that the journalist was chasing a story that many Shetlanders didn't want to come to the surface. In Dead Water, a triumphant continuation to her Shetland series, Ann Cleeves cements her place as one of Britain's most successful crime writers.

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My Review: Cleeves' trademark simplicity of language, her amazing gift for limning a character in a sentence and a setting, her painterly use of color and composition to make the story richer: All present, all accounted for. And it's not one single bit of a surprise that British television pounced on these tales. May they have the monster (comparatively) success that Cleeves' other sleuth-series, Vera, has had.

Originally the books were to be a quartet, which I think we all know means four of something. Here we are on the *fifth* book in the quartet...and a cynical little part of me (known as "the whole body and soul") thinks this fifth entry was inspired by the TV show's existence. I feel it shows in the too-muchness of everything in the story. Too much angst, and from more than only Jimmy the widower. The secondary cast is all angst-ridden, frustrated, scared of something happening, something not happening, something coming out to embarrass them. This gets wearing. In the extreme. It took three days for me to read a book whose predecessors were devoured in hours.

One big surprise is the role of the Fiscal, previously a testy martinet. A new light is shone on her character and a resolution is crafted for her that I myownself felt was too sympathetic. The resolution of the mystery, in fact, seems too sympathetic, and the guilty are, well, sprung on us in a feat-of-detection solution to the logic puzzle that all mysteries are. This isn't my favorite of the series, but I can't deny myself the pleasures of reading even an oversized undermysteried Ann Cleeves novel.:

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THIN AIR
ANN CLEEVES
Minotaur Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$11.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: A group of old university friends leave the bright lights of London and travel to Unst, Shetland's most northerly island, to celebrate the marriage of one of their friends to a Shetlander. But late on the night of the wedding party, one of them, Eleanor, disappears—apparently into thin air. It's mid-summer, a time of light nights and unexpected mists. The following day, Eleanor's friend Polly receives an email. It reads like a suicide note, saying she'll never be found alive. And then Eleanor's body is discovered, lying in a small loch close to the cliff edge.

Detectives Jimmy Perez and Willow Reeves are dispatched to Unst to investigate. Before she went missing, Eleanor claimed to have seen the ghost of a local child who drowned in the 1920s. Her interest in the legend of the ghost had seemed unhealthy - obsessive, even—to her friends: an indication of a troubled mind. But Jimmy and Willow are convinced that there is more to Eleanor's death than there first appears.

Is there a secret that lies behind the myth? One so shocking that someone would kill—many years later—to protect?

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My Review: Series mysteries are a pleasure to me. I have a (well-concealed) orderly side, one that needs to see Right done even if it's not strictly speaking legal. The Right that's done here is a bit twisty, no doubt about that, but it satisfied me. Eleanor, the murder victim, is the sort of character that just needs killing. I've known Eleanors in my life and feel that way about each of them, though I hasten to say loudly and publicly that I don't condone murder as a means to make things Right.

Really. Honest.

But Jimmy Perez is a cop, a good cop, and even though it seemed to me that he secretly felt that Right was done in Eleanor's death, he set out to solve the crime that was committed in the course of setting things straight. Willow, the new Chief Inspector we met in the previous book, is a great character. She's just awkward enough to make Jimmy feel off-balance yet protective. He's still reeling from his love's death; he's still growing accustomed to being a single dad; he's got Sandy the PC Plod character making him crazy yet advancing in his own detecting capabilities under Jimmy's tutelage. Jimmy's a man with a lot on his plate. Eleanor wouldn't be someone he'd care much for in life and I suspect he'd simply do the minimum were it not for the cast of Shetland originals wrapped deep in the case's toils.

The series brings a delightful place on Earth's surface to light. (Pun optional.) As we follow Jimmy, Willow, and Sandy around in their investigations, the Shetlands feel like so much more than the land that holds the characters up as they walk around. The islands are palpable to me, as though looking out the window while I'm reading about Unst will show me Unst instead of Long Beach. That's a great feeling to have when reading a book about a place I've never been.

The BBC has a series based on the characters in the novels. It's had three seasons to date and a fourth will be produced. It's recently become available on Netflix so I suppose I'll binge it one day soon. I was completely enthralled by Ann Cleeves' other series, Vera Stanhope, in its ITV incarnation, and Brenda Blethyn is my idea of Vera. The seventh season is due next year, 2017, and I will be there for it with bells on. I've been more cautious in approaching the adaptation of this series because Jimmy is portrayed by actor Douglas Henshall, very much not the man I see in my mental movie of the series. A bit like Peter Capaldi as the Doctor...just about exactly wrong from my viewpoint.

Still and all, it pays to remain open. While Cleeves' first four Shetland novels were made into the first two seasons of Shetland, the third season has branched out on its own. That should make the cognitive disconnect of Henshall as Jimmy Perez a good deal easier for me to absorb. The books are a pleasure, there is a seventh full novel (after several novellas) appearing next year; the TV series bids fair to be worthy of attention; it's a good investment of your eyeblinks and dollars to pick up this habit. Start anywhere, the series aspect is a boon to your pleasure but not crucial to it.

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COLD EARTH
ANN CLEEVES
Minotaur Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$11.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 3.75* of four

The Publisher Says: In the dark days of a Shetland winter, torrential rain triggers a landslide that crosses the road and sweeps down to the sea.

At the burial of his old friend Magnus Tait, Jimmy Perez watches the flood of mud and peaty water smash through a croft house in its path. Everyone thinks the croft is uninhabited, but in the wreckage he finds the body of a dark-haired woman wearing a red silk dress. In his mind, she shares his Mediterranean ancestry and soon he becomes obsessed with tracing her identity.

Then it emerges that she was already dead before the landslide hit the house. Perez feels bound by duty—and something more powerful—to find out who she was, and how she died. Within the house, the only clue is a wooden box that contains two photos, one of two small children and one of an elderly couple. And a handwritten letter, which begins: "My dearest Alis..."

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EVERY SYLLABLE BELOW HERE CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE BOOK
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YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

My Review: Ach, Jimmy, you need to pull up your socks and get with the program or Willow's gonna get something better equipped to provide bairns and boom-boom in Inverness! What a pity that'll be!

I'm invested in this novel series. I liked this entry just fine. I had a problem with the resolution: When Simon Shrinky-dink is the ONE AND ONLY voice even implying the the first victim was in any way unhappy, well...five alarms and red red flags, Author Cleeves! It wasn't enough to ruin my pleasure in spending time with Jimmy and Sandy and Willow, mind you. Something else almost was, though: When Andy Hay's gone off to Have A Think, it's about the least deft thing I've read Author Cleeves do! And Janeymum does not twig to her boyo's hidey-hole? No. He's got quite a lot of probletunities, does Andy. He's no mastermind to be successfully invisible to his doting mama when he's a hundred meters away.

So I twigged to the murderer right quick. I was sure the Hay family was in it, particularly once the nature of the business relationships around the community were limned in acid on the backs of my eyelids. EW! What I had built in my head wasn't the connection that came to light, though: I was sure Michael's girlfriend was employed by Rogerson and the motive was outraged revenge on Simon Shrinky-dink's part.

I'm also curious about a throwaway line that Author Cleeves gives to Mavis Rogerson about her Kathryn: "She's her father's daughter all right." Nothing at all is done with it. Nothing really led up to it, although the mother/daughter relationship appeared to me to be quite businesslike; I put it down to adult-child-back-in-nest syndrome. Might be I was only partway right....

There it is, laddies and gentlewomen. There's the reason I keep going with this series in a nutshell. Author Cleeves gives the reader so much more than she writes on the page. She puts in details that don't exactly redherringize you, but do command a fraction more of your attention than ordinary backgrounding. She doesn't fill them out. She says, in effect, "and what do you imagine will be behind this little nug of goodness?" then leaves us to it.

I get the feeling that she likes her readers and enjoys making things that fun bit extra.

So why, I hear the Parity-for-All Perfectioneers grumble, do you give this a "bad" 3-star plus rating? All those nosegays of praise and then *splat*? That's just wrong! The hell it is, Gold Star Granting Gremlins. You just take yourself off and read Red Bones or better still Raven Black! Author Cleeves is capable of nigh-unto-perfection. This book just isn't that. There's the rating explained.

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WILD FIRE
ANN CLEEVES
Minotaur Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$11.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: When the Flemings—designer Helena and architect Daniel—move into a remote community in the north of Shetland, they think it's a fresh start for themselves and their children.

But their arrival triggers resentment, and Helena begins to receive small drawings of a gallows and a hanged man. Gossip spreads like wildfire.

A story of dysfunctional families and fractured relationships, Inspector Jimmy Perez's eighth case will intrigue series fans and Shetland Island newcomers alike.

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My Review: Incomers Not Wanted. Southerners, most especially, and most virulently, should not plan to stay here.

This is the message that greets London couple Helena and Daniel and their two children. The autistic son discovers the hanged body of their nanny in the barn. The same barn the original owner of their new home hanged himself.

Islands, unsurprisingly, breed insular social structures. It's right there in the word, one we've generalized to describe unwelcoming, exclusive social mlilieux for quite some time now...at least since 1775, per Etymonline. It is very seldom...I'm always reluctant to say "never" in these maters because alomg will come some "Gotcha!" Gang goofball to say "clearly you're an idiot for not knowing {thing they hunted out to embarrass you}" in their never-remotely charming way...used except pejoratively. We know it's unpleasant, unhelpful, and unkind, but nevertheless we persist in doing it.

Humans. Irredeemable, the lot of 'em.

The crimes and solutions don't really hit the ground running in this, the last book of the Shetland series. There is going to be more to come...you watch!...because of Jimmy and Willow's utterly upending news. I will say Jimmy's behavior is, unexpectedly, pretty caddish and selfish. It's very human, and fits with the series' willingness to show all the characters as people, not archetypes.

That said, I as a family member of several people far down the autism spectrum felt the autism representation...while perhaps appropriate for the broader community...fell very short in Helena's case. She demonstrated deeply hurtful attitudes...tantrums? really?...in front of her autistic child. It's not the best look for the only and last time we'll be here as readers.

The procedural parts are perfectly fine, as usual; I think Author Cleeves does a creditable job of getting the case solved without going into unnecessary mishegas, as has happened in some stories gone by. I will very much miss the Shetlands, the scoobygroup, and the lurid criminality rampant in these insular settings.