2 weeks Ago By Reviewed by Nick Martin
A young man never shows up for his overnight shift at a home for troubled youth — and no prizes for guessing what the ubiquitous dog walker finds the next morning. Read this article for free: Already have an account? To continue reading, please subscribe: * A young man never shows up for his overnight shift at a home for troubled youth — and no prizes for guessing what the ubiquitous dog walker finds the next morning. Read unlimited articles for free today: Already have an account? A young man never shows up for his overnight shift at a home for troubled youth — and no prizes for guessing what the ubiquitous dog walker finds the next morning.
The slaying brings detective chief inspector Vera Stanhope and her team out of Newcastle to the wilds of Northumbria to sleuth yet again — but not just for a murder. A 14-year-old lass living in the group home disappeared into the night — maybe she’s the killer, maybe a witness to the murder. She’s scarpered, the nights are cold, the woods dense, maybe someone’s stalking her to shut her up.
David Hirst photo Ann Cleeves launches The Dark Wives in Winnipeg on Oct. 24 at Cresent Arts Centre, where she’ll be joined in conversation by Joan Thomas. Any bets there’ll just be one murder? Amazingly, is just the 11th Vera murder mystery by Ann Cleeves since in 1999.
There have been more seasons of the TV series than there have been books. Vera and her crew have become so picturable on every page, thanks to the TV series — dogged, often-kindly but steely Vera trundles onto the scene in her ancient coat and even older hat, her familiar Geordie dialect disarming both innocents and the guilty, letting everyone underestimate her at their peril, making Columbo look sartorial by comparison but no more sharp. Here Vera has a new crew member, Rosie Bell, and we won’t remind you why, lest you’re somehow a newcomer to the series.
Rosie is brash, challenging the veterans, pushing her own ideas when she’s barely arrived in the nick. Like that will go over well with the boss. But like the rest, the rookie is gritting her teeth and hunkering down to work all night, recognizing instantly that there is no work-life balance when Vera is on a case.
The title refers to ancient standing stones and myths among the dwellers in the wilderness along the Scottish border. Golly, could that have any connection with where the young girl might be hiding? And how was it that the dead young man’s parents had no clue that he’d started working at the home? Was he just a minder of warehoused minors? What Vera faces is exactly what she expected — insular people from silent families rooted in generations who kept each other’s secrets, suspected the motives of any outsider, distrusted the police implicitly, shunned even police whose own roots, historic and current, were that same wilderness country. is precisely what you’d expect: superb.
Cleeves sets the standard for character- and-place-driven police procedurals, be they Vera Stanhope north of the River Tyne, Jimmy Perez in Shetland, Matthew Vann in rural Devon. The Dark Wives Of course there’s a killer, there is evil here, there are red herrings galore. But the biggest villain makes itself clear early on: the for-profit private system of group homes for troubled children, what once were called orphanages or children’s homes, and now crowded warehouses that serve to make a profit for faceless corporations.
Keep the costs as low as possible, ignore the level of care, squeeze out every pound of profit. Monday mornings The latest local business news and a lookahead to the coming week. Cleeves wrote while the Conservatives were still in their 16 years of power in the United Kingdom.
The new massive majority Labour government may have a different view of private corporations running social services for a profit — a view which both Cleeves and Vera Stanhope would heartily approve of. Meanwhile, be glad Cleeves has gifted us with another Vera adventure. This is as good as it gets.
Say ta varry mooch, pet, curl up in your comfiest chair nearest the fire with a nice cuppa, and marvel, but isn’t our Vera champion and all? Retired Free Press reporter Nick Martin keeps hoping Vera will investigate a murder in his hometown of Jarrow-on-Tyne. Ann Cleeves will launch The Dark Wives in Winnipeg on Thursday, Oct. 24 at 7 p.
m. at Crescent Arts Centre (525 Wardlaw Ave.) where she’ll be joined in conversation by Winnipeg author Joan Thomas in an event presented by McNally Robinson Booksellers.
Tickets are $35 plus per person (including a book) or $45 plus fees for two tickets (with one book), and can be purchased at wfp.to/CMH. The Dark Wives By Ann Cleeves MacMillan, 384 pages, $26 Advertisement Advertisement.
