by Ann Cleeves
Part of Shetland
First published 2018
Helena Fleming and her husband Daniel have traded city life for the far north of Shetland. Helena is a designer, Daniel an architect, and together they picture a quieter future for their family in a remote community. The locals see it differently. Outsiders are not easily absorbed here, and resentment builds quickly around the Flemings' arrival. Then Helena starts finding small drawings left for her. Each one shows a gallows and a hanged man. Gossip moves through the community the way weather moves across the islands: fast and total. Inspector Jimmy Perez knows this landscape. He grew up in Shetland, and he understands how much weight a rumor can carry in a place where everyone watches everyone else. What he has to untangle is a web of fractured families and broken relationships, where the line between private grievance and public danger is not always clear. Wild Fire is the eighth novel in Ann Cleeves's Shetland series. It works for readers who have followed Perez from the beginning and for those arriving here for the first time. The emotional core is simple and cold: belonging is not given, and the cost of being an outsider can be very high.
Genres: literary-fiction, mystery, crime, contemporary, adult-fiction, thriller
Vibes: atmospheric, dark, isolated, psychological, suspenseful, tension-filled
Tropes: community-secrets, fish-out-of-water, psychological-suspense, small-town-mystery
Setting: Shetland, Shetland Islands
Period: 21st-century, contemporary
398 pages · Hardcover · Minotaur Books
Content warnings: death, murder