Vera Stanhope on television?
Ann Cleeves has revealed in her on-line diary that ITV productions has optioned the Vera Stanhope series, and that while not all options result in actual broadcast programmes, this project is making definite progress. The scriptwriter has been to visit the Northumberland location of Hidden Depths, which has been taken as a starting point since it was felt to offer the best introduction to the character, and he is now working on a second draft of the script.
Hear Ann talking about Vera Stanhope - and other things - in a podcast on the Pan Macmillan web site.
Hidden Depths
A hot summer on the Northumberland coast, and Julie Armstrong arrives home from a night out to find her son murdered. Luke has been strangled, laid out in a bath of water and covered with wild flowers.
This stylized murder scene has Inspector Vera Stanhope and her team intrigued. But then a second body - that of beautiful young teacher Lily Marsh - is discovered laid out in a rock pool, the water strewn with flowers. Now, Vera must work quickly to find this dramatist, this killer who is making art out of death.
Clues are slow to emerge from those who had known Luke and Lily, but Vera soon finds herself drawn towards the curious group of friends who discovered Lily's body. What unites these four men and one woman? Are they really the close-knit, trustworthy unit they claim to be? As local residents are forced to share their private lives and those of their loved ones, sinister secrets are slowly unearthed.
And all the while the killer remains in their midst, waiting for an opportunity to prepare another beautiful, watery grave ...
Hidden Depths is the third book to feature Inspector Vera Stanhope, yet Ann Cleeves told Shots Magazine that The Crow Trap (the first Vera Stanhope novel, now back in print) was originally intended as a standalone novel. But "I liked Vera Stanhope so much that I brought her back, first in Telling Tales and now in Hidden Depths. She developed because I was so cross with even feminist writers writing female central characters who were young, fit and beautiful. Vera isn't any of those things. She's overweight and middle-aged." - "more Nero Wolfe than V I Warshawski", as Jake Kerridge put it in The Telegraph!
- Hidden Depths is published by Macmillan: order the hardback edition from Amazon, or from your local bookshop (quoting the ISBN: 978-1-4050-5473-7)
- It is also available in paperback: order the paperback from Amazon, or quote ISBN: 978-0330441155 to your local book shop.
- The Soundings Audio Book, read by Anne Dover, was published on 1st June 2007, available on audio cassette or CD),
- and the Charnwood Large Print edition (ISBN: 978-1-84617-918-1) was published on 1st October.
- See the Foreign editions & translations page for other editions.
"... one of the most appealing fictional detectives to emerge since Andy Dalziel got into his stride..."
Martin Edwards, Spinetingler Magazine
"... although she is lonely, obsessed with her job and over fond of a beer, Vera is one of the few fictional detectives who seems not only like a real person, but one capable of conducting a murder enquiry. Ann Cleeves brings the same skill to all her characterisations in this highly impressive story."
Jake Kerridge, Daily Telegraph
"Ann Cleeves, winner of last year's inaugural Duncan Lawrie Dagger, is another fine author with a strong, credible female protagonist. Detective Vera Stanhope, a heavy-drinking, lumbering loner marooned in middle age, bears little resemblance to the traditionally fit and feisty detective who is such a familiar figure in the contemporary crime novel... Cleeves' particular skill is characterisation. Her characters range from affluent students to a spoiled woman filled with diffused sexual yearnings, from nurses to academics, from painfully doting parents to a group of middle-aged bird-watchers, all with their own secrets. It's a dark, interesting novel with considerable emotional force behind it."
Andrew Taylor, The Spectator
"Ann Cleeves improves with every book....
"Hidden Depths is a subtle, nuanced book and Cleeves draws her characters with care and compassion. The landscape of rural Northumberland is vividly evoked and Inspector Stanhope - overweight, fallible and driven by personal demons - is a terrific central character."
Tribune
"Nobody does unsettling undercurrents better than Ann Cleeves."
"Cleeves sets a good scene, this time in Northumberland during a heatwave, and she brings a large cast to life, shifting points of view between bereaved relatives, victims and suspects in a straightforward, satisfyingly traditional detective novel."
Jessica Mann, The Literary Review
Telling Tales
10 years ago Jeanie Long was charged with the murder of 15-year old Abigail Mantel. Now new evidence has proved Jeanie's innocence. But Jeanie commits suicide in her prison cell, unable to face the people who had believed her capable of killing a child. On hearing the news, Emma Bennett is haunted once more by memories of her vibrant best friend, Abigail, and by the thought that her killer is still at large. Now Inspector Vera Stanhope is making fresh enquiries amongst the residents of Elvet, the small East Yorkshire village where Emma and Abigail grew up. Everyone is feeling vulnerable and uneasy, even guilty. And when a second body is found, the investigation takes a frightening new turn...
"A riveting read. Ann Cleeves probes beneath the surface of a community to reveal the darkness that can fester when everyone thinks they know each other's secrets"
Val McDermid
"Cleeves' portrayal of rural life is as far removed from chocolate box as you could hope for. The natural world here is all-powerful, striking rather than pretty and relationships in the community as bitter as the winds that scour the coast. Whether detailing the domestic world, life with a small baby or the work of the pilots on the ships, Cleeves has an accomplished eye. An excellent psychological thriller."
Cath Staincliffe, Tangled Web
Telling Tales is available from Amazon:
- in a paperback edition (published 3rd February 2006)
- in a Charnwood Large Print edition
- as a Soundings audio CD, read by Julia Franklin (ISBN: 978-1407905778),
- and in the original hardback.
Read an interview with Ann about Telling Tales and other things....
The Crow Trap
Vera Stanhope's previous appearance was in The Crow Trap (published in 1999).
At the isolated Baikie's Cottage on the North Pennines, three very different women come together to complete an environmental survey. Three women who, in some way or another, know the meaning of betrayal...
For team leader Rachael Lambert the project is the perfect opportunity to rebuild her confidence after a double-betrayal by her lover and boss, Peter Kemp. Botanist Anne Preece, on the other hand, sees it as a chance to indulge in a little deception of her own. And then there is Grace Fulwell, a strange, uncommunicative young woman with plenty of her own secrets to hide...
When Rachael arrives at the cottage, however, she is horrified to discover the body of her friend Bella Furness. Bella, it appears, has committed suicide - a verdict Rachael finds impossible to accept.
Only when the next death occurs does a fourth woman enter the picture - the unconventional Detective Inspector Vera Stanhope, who must piece together the truth from these women's tangled lives...
"Trauma, obsession and murder entwine in a suspense-packed crime story that puts Ms Cleeves in the Rendell class"
Peterborough Evening Telegraph
Order The Crow Trap from Amazon:
- in paperback
- in large print
- or in hardback