Book Stop Corner

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


“The most loving parents and relatives commit murder with smiles on their faces. They force us to destroy the person we really are: a subtle kind of murder.”
----Jim Morrison

Ann Cleeves, the English best-selling author of Shetland series, which is now the major BBC1 drama starring Douglas Henshall, SHETLAND, has penned down the fifth book in the Shetland series, called, Dead Water .

Synopsis:
When the body of journalist Jerry Markham is found in a traditional Shetland boat, outside the house of the Fiscal, down at the Marina, young Detective Inspector Willow Reeves is drafted in to head up the investigation. Since the death of his fiancée, Inspector Jimmy Perez has been out of the loop, but his interest in this new case stirred and he decides to help the inquiry. Markham -- originally a Shetlander but who had made a name for himself in London -- had left the islands years before. In his wake, he left a scandal involving a young girl, Evie Watt, who is now engaged to a seaman. He had few friends in Shetland, so why was he back? Willow and Jimmy led to Sullum Voe, the heart of Shetland's North Sea oil and gas industry. It soon emerges from their investigation that Markham was chasing a story in his final days. One that must have been significant enough to warrant his death...


Why have I never come across author Ann Cleeves in my life? Well, because of Ann Cleeves herself, I got a chance to read her new book in the Shetland series. She is utterly brilliant woman!

Inspector Jimmy Perez is back with an all-new mystery on Shetland Islands in Scotland. Jerry Markham, a local popular small-time journalist found murdered in the yoal, and following which begins a roller coaster ride of some hidden past secrets and emotions. A new detective named Willow Reeves assigned to lead this case along with Sandy Wilson. However, it felt to her that the Shetlanders are the very mysterious people where almost every one held a motive to kill that journalist who was hell bound to expose about the new companies setting up in Shetland Islands.

Since this is the first ever book that I read of this author, so I cannot judge her by her previous works. I felt the narration as well as the story telling to be simply smooth and free flowing. Moreover, with her choice of articulate words, it made her prose quite crisp and eloquent. I really fell for her style of writing the book. Cleeves is a genius when it comes to hiding the mystery in the story line. She managed to keep her readers on the loop until the very last chapter. The mystery made me keep on anticipating, but in the end, I felt my conclusion turned out to be wrong and I think the author has quite skillfully managed to throw sand in our eyes.

The story that she spun was highly intriguing and from the very first page, I was standing on the edge to find a killer in Shetland. The twists and the turns were peeled layer-by-layer with the progress of the story. Such an addictive plot left me hooked to the story until the very end.

The characterization was strong where both the main as well as the supporting characters were very promising. All the suspects in Pervez's list acted just like a killer with a motive until the very last page. There was no slight change that I managed to observe in their suspicious demeanor all through the book and that made me point fingers on the wrong person.

I felt bit disappointed with air of loneliness around Pervez. Although he was a very strong man from the outside, but from the inside he seem quite broken, lonely, vulnerable, and insecure to me. Reading about him made me gloomy and sad all the time.

The setting of the book was very striking. Since this is the first time I read about Shetland Islands, I felt the author's descriptions about this island was very sharp and intricate. While reading the book, I always felt that chilly, salty breeze of Shetland Islands on my skin. Cleeves made me see Scotland in a completely new light!
P.S. Read the book, and you will know why I quoted Morrison!

Verdict: This book is a must-read for all crime lovers.

Courtesy: I'd like to thank the author, Ann Cleeves, as well as her publisher from Pan Macmillan for giving me the opportunity to read and review her book. 
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Author Info:
Ann is the author of the books behind ITV's VERA, now in it's third series, and the BBC's SHETLAND, which will be aired in December 2012. Ann's DI Vera Stanhope series of books is set in Northumberland and features the well loved detective along with her partner Joe Ashworth. Ann's Shetland series bring us DI Jimmy Perez, investigating in the mysterious, dark, and beautiful Shetland Islands...
Ann grew up in the country, first in Herefordshire, then in North Devon. Her father was a village school teacher. After dropping out of university she took a number of temporary jobs - child care officer, women's refuge leader, bird observatory cook, auxiliary coastguard - before going back to college and training to be a probation officer.
While she was cooking in the Bird Observatory on Fair Isle, she met her husband Tim, a visiting ornithologist. She was attracted less by the ornithology than the bottle of malt whisky she saw in his rucksack when she showed him his room. Soon after they married, Tim was appointed as warden of Hilbre, a tiny tidal island nature reserve in the Dee Estuary. They were the only residents, there was no mains electricity or water and access to the mainland was at low tide across the shore. If a person's not heavily into birds - and Ann isn't - there's not much to do on Hilbre and that was when she started writing. Her first series of crime novels features the elderly naturalist, George Palmer-Jones. A couple of these books are seriously dreadful.
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