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What I enjoy in each book by Ann Cleeves is her cast of troubled, quirky, fascinating, and lovable characters combined with a satisfying murder to solve.
Just as she’s done in her Shetland and Vera Stanhope series, her new Two Rivers series provides characters I care about and mysteries that stump me every time.
DI Matthew Venn lives with his husband, Jonathan, in a house by the seashore. Matthew’s religious past still haunts him, but he makes a very good detective. Jonathan runs a local non-profit called “The Woodyard” that employs differently-abled people through a café and provides studio space and hosts events for local artists. The murders in The Heron’s Cry do involve The Woodyard and artists, just like the first book did.
Detective Jen Rafferty, a single mother of two teens, also features in this book. She does excellent detective work and feels guilty that she can’t spend as much time with her kids as she’d like.
The Heron’s Cry begins early on with a ghastly murder that leads Matthew and the team to interview families of people who died by suicide and to investigate the health care facilities that treated them. They uncover a dark online club, the true story behind an incident in the past, and find the trail that points them to the person who connects it all together. Will they solve the case before yet another murder is committed?
If you like Ann Cleeves’ books, you will enjoy The Heron’s Cry. The release date is September 7, 2021. (If you like these books, there is good news: The Long Call, the first book in this series, is being made into a new TV series to be released on BritBox in early 2022!!!)
Life of Kim 