by Ann Cleeves
Part of Shetland
First published 2016
Anna Blackwell is dead. The local police in Stonebridge, a small Scottish Borders village, call it suicide or a tragic accident. Places like Stonebridge don't get murders. But Sarah Perez isn't satisfied. She asks her ex-husband, Detective Inspector Jimmy Perez, to come down from Shetland and take a closer look. The reason is personal: village gossip says her new husband Tom was sleeping with Anna. Sarah doesn't believe it, but she needs to know for certain. Perez starts pulling at the threads. Anna was a teacher who cared about children, including her own young daughter. She had seemed lighter, happier, in the weeks before she died. None of that fits a woman about to take her own life. Who would walk away knowing her child had no one? Perez thinks about the timing, the mood, the daughter left behind. The picture that forms doesn't look like despair. It looks like someone had a reason to want Anna gone. In a village where everyone knows everyone, the truth is close. So is the person hiding it.
Genres: fiction, mystery, crime, contemporary, thriller, detective
Vibes: atmospheric, dark, gritty, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: personal-investigation, small-town-secrets, unreliable-truth
Setting: Stonebridge, Scottish Borders, Shetland, Scotland
Period: contemporary
112 pages · Paperback · Pan
Content warnings: death, murder, suicide