06/10/2024
The murder of an employee at a home for troubled youth triggers a search for a missing girl in bestseller Cleeves’s forceful 11th Vera Stanhope mystery (after The Rising Tide). When 14-year-old Rosebank Home resident Chloe Spence vanishes the same night that somebody kills Rosebank employee Josh Woodburn, Det. Insp. Stanhope and her Northumbria Police colleagues suspect a connection. The facility houses particularly troubled teens, so some of Stanhope’s colleagues believe Chloe attacked Josh and fled. However, Chloe’s diary indicates she adored Josh; it also mentions someone “pervy” loitering outside the facility, suggesting to police that Chloe was more likely a frightened witness to Josh’s killing. Vera and her team start digging, hoping to find a clue that will lead them to Chloe. Instead, they discover a second corpse in nearby Northumberland that raises even more questions. Cleeves portrays Rosebank’s kids and its staffers with compassion and respect, even as she spotlights the pitfalls of a for-profit approach to child welfare. Multiple narrators and a core cast of keenly rendered characters lend the tale dimension while furthering the series arc. Cleeves’s fans will be well satisfied. (Aug.)
An Instant New York Times Bestseller
A USA Today Bestseller
An Apple Books Best Book of September
One of Parade’s “Best New Book Releases This Week”
“Forceful . . . Multiple narrators and a core cast of keenly rendered characters lend the tale dimension while furthering the series arc. Cleeves’s fans will be well satisfied.”—Publishers Weekly
“A taut police procedural enhanced by relevant social consciousness.”—Booklist
“An excellent character-driven entry that highlights major problems in Britain's child welfare system.”—Kirkus Reviews
“The Dark Wives is a hell of a good story.”—BookPage
“Ann Cleeves has mastered the prolonged suspenseful ending.”—Shelf Awareness
“It’s a good read.”—St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“A slow burn with a smasher of an ending.”—Aunt Agatha’s
“The complex plot had me hooked from the start, and the settings—both seaside and rural—were so well written I can still see them in my mind days after finishing the book. Vera is not the only character who comes alive on the pages. Cleeves has a terrific skill in developing characters that seem to walk right off the page into the readers’ lives. The Dark Wives has me chomping at the bit for the next book in the Vera series.”—Reviewing the Evidence
“Like Rendell and James before her, like McDermid and Rankin today, Ann Cleeves is one of our secret chroniclers, charting—under cover of a series of expertly plotted and mesmerizing crime novels—how we live now.”—Mick Herron, author of the Slough House series
06/01/2024
When Josh Woodburn's body is found outside Rosebank, a home for troubled teens, Detective Inspector Vera Stanhope's team is sent to investigate the staff member's death; Josh was supposed to work a shift at Rosebank the night before. The murder investigation quickly expands into a search for 14-year-old Chloe Spence, who disappeared from Rosebank the same night as Jonathan's death. Is Chloe a killer, another victim, or a terrified witness? Frantic to find the missing girl, Vera expands the search northward to the wilds of Northumberland, an area that Chloe is known to love. When the body of a different Rosebank resident is found there, Vera knows that Chloe is in danger. The ongoing search coincides with the legendary stories of the area's standing stones, called the Three Dark Wives, and the annual ceremonial witch hunt in the community. Although the event is meant as a treat for local children and a draw for tourists, Vera knows that when the lights go out in town, she has to be prepared to find a killer—or another body. She just hopes that the next victim won't be Chloe Spence. VERDICT The conclusion to this novel feels abrupt, but fans of Cleeve's complex, character-driven Vera series will be pleased with this latest installment, the sequel to The Rising Tide.—Lesa Holstine
With her portfolio of British accents, narrator Janine Birkett brings Vera Stanhope to life, along with her team and the other characters in the eleventh book in this series. Birkett's voice for Vera perfectly conveys her rough-edged persona, now somewhat mellowed by the recent death of her former team member, Holly. With Cleeves's masterful descriptions and Birkett's ability to differentiate characters, listeners are drawn into this atmospheric story of a young man's murder and a teenager's disappearance from a private care home. Listeners meet the newest addition to Vera's team, Rosie, whom Birkett performs with an energetic, youthful voice that matches her personality. Fans will appreciate the opportunity to once again explore Northumberland, England, as Vera pursues the murderer and searches for the missing girl. E.Q. © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine
2024-07-04
In the north of England, DI Vera Stanhope and her team labor to uncover the connection between a teen missing from a children’s care home and a pair of murders.
When Chloe Spence disappears shortly after Josh Woodburn, a staffer at the Rosebank Home, is killed, she has to be considered a suspect. Chloe is a bright 14-year-old whose father left the family and mother is in a psychiatric hospital, and after Vera reads her diary, she thinks her innocent. The system that cares for troubled children is falling apart, and the private companies that run much of it don’t much care. Vera, who’s earned a reputation for solving weird cases, feels guilty over the recent death of a member of her team, leaving her to work with the proven DS Joe Ashworth and the ambitious new DC Rosie Bell. Chloe had been attending the well-regarded Salvation Academy, but her diary makes clear that plenty of problems were being pasted over to maintain the school’s good name. The staff at the home say only that Chloe was a loner who had a crush on Josh, a university student from a well-heeled family who took the job to impress the girl he loved, a save-the-world type. The next to die is another resident of the home, an older boy who sells drugs. It looks like an overdose to everyone but Vera, who smells more murder. Her biggest concern is finding Chloe—who’s deeply afraid of trusting anyone—before the killer does.
An excellent character-driven entry that highlights major problems in Britain’s child welfare system.
