Our Rating:
Library Formats:
Book, Audiobook, eBook, eAudiobook
Age Group:
Adults
Genre:
Crime
This review was written by Rachel on behalf of The Bath Bloodhounds.
‘When a body is found on the common outside Rosebank, an isolated care home for troubled teens, DI Vera Stanhope is called out to investigate. The victim is Josh, a staff member, who never showed up to work, and her only clue is the disappearance of fourteen-year-old resident Chloe. Vera can’t bring herself to believe that a teenager is responsible for the murder, but even she can’t dismiss the possibility.
Then, in the isolated wilds of the Northumbrian countryside, near the Three Dark Wives standing stones which have triggered legends across the centuries, a second body is found. As folklore and fact begin to collide, Vera knows she has to find Chloe to get to the truth.
But it seems that there are dark secrets in their community – ones that may be far more dangerous than she could ever have believed . . .’
The Dark Wives is the eleventh book in Ann Cleeves’ Vera Stanhope series. A rather depleted number of Bloodhounds met to discuss it (and speculate that those not joining us were out trick or treating), and we all liked the book well enough, with some more enthusiastic than others. We agreed that it was well-plotted, had some good set piece scenes, such as a night-time ‘witch hunt’ on a hillside, and dealt with the serious contemporary issue of the privatisation of young people’s care homes in a realistic and thought-provoking way. Those of us who are big fans of Brenda Blethyn in the role of Vera for the ITV series were amazed that others had never seen it! It seems that we all had Blethyn in mind as we were reading, though.
We agreed that with Ann Cleeves ‘you are in safe hands’ and that if you like a straightforward police procedural this hits the mark. Overall, it was a thumbs up from the Bloodhounds, with the average thumb at an angle of about 45 degrees rather than 90.