The Glass Room (Vera Stanhope)

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The police find that the evidence that seemed to incriminate Joanna in fact does not, so she is released and the course uneasily continues while the police examine the background and history of all their suspects (including Joanna of course). When she comes home to her remote farm one October evening, laden with grocery bags, her door is unlocked.

The Glass Room by Ann Cleeves | Waterstones

Her hippie next-door neighbor, Jack Devanney, is sitting in front of her fire with “tears running down his cheeks. But when she arrives she is plunged straight into a murder scene in the titular glass room, with Joanna the prime suspect. And we empathise with Joe as she cruelly manipulates him and we wonder if he'll ever cut himself loose. Artist and academic Lisa Perrin’s first book is a gorgeously illustrated and designed collection of biographies of that most romantic and maligned of villainesses: the poisoner. Where the humorous, self-deprecating, occasionally bawdy Detective Chief Inspector Vera Stanhope goes, we will follow—and we’re not alone.Ann Cleeves is always scrupulously fair in the construction of her plots; clues are seeded throughout the storyline and it's always possible to work out the likely killer - or it would be if we could only identify the clues and realise their significance! Heavner isn’t exactly mollified when Tempe, aided by retired police detective Skinny Slidell and a host of experts, puts a name to the dead man. The writing is excellent; the characterizations are wonderful -- nuanced and very credible (as usual); Cleeve's ear for dialog is terrific and her ability to conjure up atmosphere is spot on.

The Glass Room: Ann Cleeves (Vera Stanhope Book 5)

A week after the night she chases but fails to catch a mysterious trespasser outside her town house, some unknown party texts Tempe four images of a corpse that looks as if it’s been chewed by wild hogs, because it has been. Meanwhile, back in the Northumberland foothills, Vera is approached by her neighbour Jack Devanney, who is desperately worried about the unexplained absence of his partner Joanna. The murder of prying journalist Jerry Markham propels Cleeves's absorbing fourth Shetland mystery (after 2010's Blue Lightning).The Vera Stanhope novels are positioned somewhere between the second and third of these categories; it's obvious from the cast of characters that they have a foot firmly in the procedural camp, but they are also very clearly puzzles.

Review: The Glass Room by Ann Cleeves - Criminal Element Review: The Glass Room by Ann Cleeves - Criminal Element

If, after reading the book, you disagree with any of my meanderings, I'd much appreciate your comments - to which I promise to reply.

Things get complicated when a body is discovered and Vera's neighbour is found with a knife in her hand. Cleeves crafts a subtle, complex mystery, and the curmudgeonly Vera and her distinctive view of the world make this series stand out in a crowded genre. It's also the twentyfifth novel of Ann Cleeves' writing career, which - together with much else - embraces the truly excellent Shetland Quartet, a series of four novels featuring the enigmatic Fair Isle-born DI Jimmy Perez. Salma and Bilal are your typical British couple looking to move off the estate and into a quiet suburban neighborhood.

The Glass Room: A Vera Stanhope Mystery - Ann Cleeves The Glass Room: A Vera Stanhope Mystery - Ann Cleeves

Note also Vera’s unsparing description of herself: “great fat Cupid in wellies” is one of her milder self-portraits.

He gets his back up, but when she flatly says, “You picked up Joanna Tobin two days ago,” he says, “Aye, that’s right. Enjoy more of Vera Stanhope’s investigations with Harbour Street, The Moth Catcher, The Seagull and The Darkest Evening. Stepping into The Glass Room is a little like being transported back to the golden age of mystery stories: a windswept landscape, isolated country house, disparate people thrown together, crime scenes mimicking their fictional counterparts and a plot liberally strewn with blind alleys, red herrings and mis-directions.