Winner of Britain’s coveted Duncan Lawrie Dagger Award, Ann Cleeves introduces a dazzling new suspense series to U.S. mystery readers. Raven Black begins on New Year’s Eve with a lonely outcast named Magnus Tait, who stays home waiting for visitors who never come. But the next morning the body of a murdered teenage girl is discovered nearby, and suspicion falls on Magnus. Inspector Jimmy Perez … Inspector Jimmy Perez enters an investigative maze that leads deeper into the past of the Shetland Islands than anyone wants to go.
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I love mysteries that take place in exotic locations, and Ann Cleeves masterful novel, Raven Black drew me in and caught me, as if sinking my feet into the chill peat bogs of Shetland. It’s unlikely I will ever visit the remote island where the story takes place, but Ann’s spare and lyrical prose took me there through a multi-layered, haunting …
RAVEN BLACK is the first novel in the DI Jimmy Perez quartet by Ann Cleeves, a book that immediately plunges you into a murder mystery set in a wild and untamed landscape riven by the sea. The books and the BBC television series Shetland–the latter now in Season4– are equally terrific, combining an enticing cast of characters with the isolation …
This is the first book in the series that inspired the TV show “Shetland” on Netflix. I loved getting Inspector Jimmy Perez’s backstory, and the twisty plot kept me guessing.
Let’s start with what I like/love about this book:
1. I really like the cop – Inspector Perez [NOT a name you’d expect on the Shetland Islands off the coast of Scotland in the middle of FREAKING NOWHERE now is it?]. He is a Shetland boy himself and knows both the island and the people and loves it, even as he is torn with the idea of moving back …
This is the first in an eight book Shetland series and somehow I skipped it. It is a masterful book, with fully realized characters, a stunning setting, and a complex plot that seems to have emerged from characters and plot. Cleeves writes multiple points of view effortlessly–just a marvelous beginning to one of my favorite series.
Jimmy Perez keeps a lonely vigil as a detective on the Mainland in the Shetland Islands. He is divorced, and although he is a native Shetlander, his Spanish ancestry and Fair Isle origins make him feel a bit like an outsider.
When teenage girl is found murdred, Jimmy has to confront the ghost of another case, a child who went missing and whom …
The island of Shetland was as much of a character as the people involved. Learning about Up Helly Aa was interesting too.
4 stars for a very well done mystery/thriller set in Shetland, Scotland. Shetland is several hundred miles north of mainland Scotland. It is very remote with its only access by plane or ship. When there are storms, the islands are cut off for days at a time.
A young girl, Catherine Ross, is found murdered near the cottage of Magnus Tait, a loner …
I love it when the twist at the end catches me unaware, like this one did.
I’m so glad I discovered author Ann Cleeves. Her style is old-school mystery, using many different POV characters to slowly churn up all the possible villains. Raven Black is a twisty mystery that takes place on Shetland, and is the basis for the BBC series SHETLAND, which I haven’t watched but now will. The character-driven book is so atmospheric …
This is a great series with the lead character of Jimmy Perez just one in a realistic cast. The setting of Shetland is deeply appealing. The series has one or two heart-breaking moments and, for me, a not-quite-satisfactory ending, but otherwise the books are very well plotted traditional police procedurals, neither too gritty nor cosy. If you’ve …
I loved this book because of its atmospheric setting in the Shetland Islands, well-developed and intriguing characters, and twisty plot that kept me guessing until the very end.
A good and compelling mystery. The Shetland series are good mysteries with great characters you care about. They’ve led to an outstanding TV show.
Really liked all of her Shetland/Jimmy Perez mysteries even though I am not a big fan of her Vera series
The author’s plot is intricate, and involves investigation of two murders several years apart. The conclusion is truly unexpected! I didn’t see it coming!
The novel is set on the Scottish island of Shetland. The author brings it to life with lots of descriptive language and details of life in a fishing village.
The detective is a tall, …
I loved the setting in the Shetland Islands–and the characters. This is the first in the series which is best read in order.
A remote Scottish island community, a teenage girl is found dead. Chief suspect is Magnus Tait, an old, strange man who lives in the nearest house to the field where the body is discovered. As the story continues the detective Jimmy Perez discovers some years ago, another young girl disappeared in mysterious circumstances near to Magnus’s house, …
I really liked this book. The descriptions of the land and culture were great. I couldn’t put it down and would find myself looking for time in my schedule so I could read more. A very good who-done-it.
Wonderful story that takes place in The Shetland Islands. Great characters!
I am a suspense writer myself, so I read suspense looking at craft. The first paragraph of Raven Black may be a perfect first paragraph for a suspense novel. Read it, and you’re in.