The Shetland Islands breed some very unusual folks, not surprising really when the daylight lasts well into the night and every time you want go somewhere you have to catch a ferry. It's a very different kind of life style. Interestingly, when a body is found in a field it is left there for hours (with a police guard of course) while the necessary officials travel by plane or ferry from the nearest hub to investigate. A group of old university friends leave the bright lights of London and travel to Shetland to celebrate the marriage of one of their friends. But, one of them, Eleanor, disappears—apparently into thin air. It's mid-summer, a time of light nights and unexpected mists. And then Eleanor's body is discovered lying in a small loch close to the cliff edge. So Jimmy is doing much better in this book, it's been a year since he lost Fran and he is working cases. The fact that he is able to leave Cassie with her father for some over nights says a lot about how much he has loosened up. He still has pain over Fran, but is trying to be better and make sure Cassie sees her grandparents.

Insp. Jimmy Perez arrives from the Scottish mainland to investigate the disappearance of a young English woman from a wedding party. When her body is found, questions arise over whether her death is suicide or murder. A well-developed police procedural marks Cleeves's sixth "Shetland Mystery" (after Dead Water). Library Journal Ann Cleeves' striking Shetland novel explores the tensions between tradition and modernity that lie deep at the heart of a community, and how events from the past can have devastating effects on the present. So if you're in the mood for a highly atmospheric, picturesque detective drama in the British Shetland Isles, try this one. Plenty of suspects on a remote Scottish island mixed with the high quality of Cleeves's prose make this a solidly plotted whodunit for procedural and traditional mystery readers."— Library Journal The missing woman was part of 2 couples who travelled from London to see one of their friends marry an island man. The women have known each other since uni so you'd think they had no secrets between them. You'd be wrong.Cleeves was born in Herefordshire and brought up in north Devon where she attended Barnstaple Grammar School; [2] she studied English at the University of Sussex but dropped out and then took up various jobs, including cook at the Fair Isle bird observatory, auxiliary coastguard, probation officer, library outreach worker and child care officer. [3] Personal life [ edit ] Ann Cleeves' striking new Shetland novel explores the tensions between tradition and modernity that lie deep at the heart of a community, and how events from the past can have devastating effects on the present.

Ann is the author of the books behind ITV's VERA, now in it's third series, and the BBC's SHETLAND, which will be aired in December 2012. Ann's DI Vera Stanhope series of books is set in Northumberland and features the well loved detective along with her partner Joe Ashworth. Ann's Shetland series bring us DI Jimmy Perez, investigating in the mysterious, dark, and beautiful Shetland Islands... Welcome to Shetland in mid-summer. Light fills nearly the full twenty-four hours and casts eerie and disorienting shadows. The fog rolls in and out and swirls all around, distorting distances and sound and enhancing the sense of isolation on these remote islands. The quirkiness of the people who have lived here all their lives or have chosen to leave the bustling mainland seems exaggerated by sleepless nights. In THIN AIR, a group of four southerners arrives at the most northern island, Unst, to celebrate their friends' wedding. By the end of the book, one of them is dead, and the lives of the others are changed forever.

More Shetland books:

I really enjoyed this one. I think it was because the mystery in this one at least made better sense than the last one. It wasn’t great either, but there were clues there that you could follow in retrospect after you got to the end. Sharon Mensing is the Head of School of Emerald Mountain School, an independent school in the mountains of Colorado, where she lives, reads, and enjoys the outdoors.