by Ann Cleeves
Part of Vera Stanhope
First published 2015
Patrick is supposed to be watching over a grand country house in a quiet Northumberland valley while the owners are away. Instead, he turns up dead beside the lane leading into Valley Farm, alone in a landscape that is beautiful and empty in equal measure. DI Vera Stanhope drives out to take a look. Vera is not the tidiest detective, nor the most diplomatic, but she is the sharpest, and murder makes her feel more awake than anything else in her life. She brings Holly and Joe with her, and when they search the attic flat where Patrick had been living, they find a second man, also dead. The two victims share one thing: a passion for catching moths, those rare and fragile creatures that come out in the dark. Valley Farm turns out to be a small, sealed world with three couples living in close quarters and no shortage of things they would rather not discuss. One family is days away from a daughter walking out of prison. A neighbor watches the lane from his window, day after day, saying nothing. Vera pushes in, asks the wrong questions at the right moments, and feels the community tighten around her.
Genres: mystery, crime, adult, adult-fiction, thriller, detective
Vibes: atmospheric, dark, gritty, introspective, suspenseful, tense
Tropes: closed-circle-mystery, community-secrets, determined-detective, multiple-victims
Setting: Valley Farm, Northumberland, England
400 pages · Hardcover · Macmillan
Content warnings: death, murder