Vera Stanhope has taken her doctor’s advice and is swimming regularly at a health club. One morning, she finds the body of a middle-aged woman in the steam room. She has been strangled.
The victim is Jenny Lister, a social worker. She seems not to have any enemies, although she was the supervisor of Connie Masters, a social worker who was recently vilified when a boy under her care was murdered by his mother. Jenny’s daughter, Hannah, is devastated, and Hannah’s boyfriend, Simon Eliot, is very protective of her.
At the health club there has been a series of petty thefts, and Jenny’s handbag is missing. The thefts started when Danny Shaw became a cleaner, but are the thefts connected to the murder? Jenny might have been writing a book that she kept in the handbag.
As the investigation goes in several directions, Vera’s team soon feels as if it has too much to handle. Then Danny Shaw’s body is discovered.
This is another of Ann Cleeves’s complex but engrossing mysteries, set in Northern England. I think that Cleeves really has a talent for characterization and complex plots. I am enjoying this series.
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I’ve just started watching Shetland and see that’s based on Ann Cleeves books, so Vera is as well? Crikey, I had no idea – where does she find the time?!
I think she’s winding down the Shetland books, which is unfortunate. There are a lot more of the TV series mysteries than there are the books. But yes, it’s a lot!
and not just the time, but what an imagination!
I see that you finished Once Upon A River, and since you are not going to review for a while, I was wondering what you thought of it.
I was on the fence about it. I thought it was a lot better than her previous book. It was very fairy tale like, which I didn’t necessarily like, but it kept my attention and had likable characters.
I liked it too, but had some misgivings because of the pace of the novel; I wondered if it was slow for indulgence sake, or deliberately slow. The fantasy element was what I liked the most; it was a nice contrast between the old world and the new, religion and science, and all that. I look forward to your review, when you post it.