The Rising Tide: A dark, atmospheric mystery from bestseller Ann Cleeves, featuring Vera Stanhope, star of ITV's Vera

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Just so.’ Keating gave a lovely smile. ‘Your boss was right, and will be, I’m afraid, insufferable. I think perhaps you should go and tell her, so she can be triumphant, and then start to get the investigation moving. As she always has, Ann Cleeves really grabbed my attention with her latest book, The Rising Tide. And didn’t let go... Vera Stanhope is one of the literary world’s most realistic detectives… This just might be my favorite Vera book, at least thus far.”— Free-Lance Star

To all those who love a really good murder mystery with so many twists and turns to make your head spin and keep you guessing who did it until the end, this is the book for you!!!! I've learned a valuable lesson: beware of high school reunions,even if they are every 5 years, with all the same " friends" who you thought you knew so well, you will find out that you never really knew them at all!!! THE RISING TIDE is yet another example of Cleeves’ skillful writing, especially including a reference to COVID without dwelling on it. The ending is powerful, and one must applaud Ms. Cleeves for it. The story leaves one anxious for the next book.Vera herself - a chunky woman with a hearty appetite who's totally unconcerned about fashion - is my favorite character. Ann Cleeve's Vera Stanhope books are the basis for the TV series 'Vera', in which the Detective Inspector is wonderfully played by Brenda Blethyn.

And leading lady Brenda has already teased what’s to come after that, following filming in Corbridge in December. But although Vera is front and centre in the investigation, two members of her team also get a chance to shine in this one—Joe, Vera’s favourite, and Holly, who wants to move up in the ranks. …but [Vera] was a control freak. She’d always found it hard to delegate to the team. She told herself: It was time she learned that lesson and gave her team some freedom to act alone. She’s called in to investigate a suspected suicide, but as always, her instincts prove to be spot on, and she’s soon looking for a murderer. My first introduction to this author was her Shetland series. I read them all and then watched the series on television. Both were brilliant. I then discovered this series and Vera but my intro was reversed. Watched the series and then read the books. I seem to love pretty much anything this author writes.There’s a swathe of clues to go through, and false starts, overlayed by the sense of time and Hector’s bits of nonsense bullying Vera from the grave. Cleeves crafts a clever central puzzle, then confers remarkable emotional complexity using her keenly drawn characters’ advancing age, wistful nostalgia, and thorny shared history. A pinwheeling third-person narrative drives the pace, while Vera’s candor tempers the plot’s darker elements. Fair-play mystery fans will delight."— Publishers Weekly Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an advance copy of this audiobook. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Holy Island. Known to southerners as Lindisfarn. The scene of an ancient tragedy. Isobel Hall flew into a rage and left the island just as the tide was coming in. Her car ran off the causeway and Isobel died. That was 45 years ago. The engrossing plot delves into the friends' reminiscences, which seem innocuous but possess an underlying menace. Vera—blunt, intelligent, frumpy and obsessive yet deeply affectionate toward her team—continues to prove her investigative mettle. A visit with Vera—whether in the series or via the television adaptation, now in its 11th season—is always welcome."—Oline Cogdill, Shelf AwarenessIn this standalone that includes characters Joe and Holly, murder suspects drop their defenses before Colombo-like detective Vera Stanhope, a character who understands natives and criminals better than most—and who seems to carry a deep empathy for them all. From Ann Cleeves— New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of the Vera and Shetland series, both of which are hit TV shows— comes the stunning tenth Vera Stanhope novel, The Rising Tide, a powerful novel about guilt, betrayal, and the longheld secrets people keep. For fifty years a group of friends have been meeting regularly for reunions on Holy Island, celebrating the school trip where they met, and the friend that they lost to the rising causeway tide five years later. Now, when one of them is found hanged, Vera is called in. Learning that the dead man had recently been fired after misconduct allegations, Vera knows she must discover what the friends are hiding, and whether the events of many years before could have led to murder then, and now . . .

That said, I’m thinking that this entry to the Vera series missed the mark for me on three main fronts:

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The Rising Tide is the tenth book in the Vera Stanhope series by Ann Cleeves. It was the first book by Anne Cleeves I have read. Reading it as a stand-alone did not inhibit my enjoyment. Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival. School friends first bonded fifty years earlier at a retreat on Holy Island. They were led by a young teacher. They have had a reunion every five years since. On their first reunion, one of the participants, Isobel Hall, died when caught in the rising tide while crossing the causeway. Now, the five who have returned regularly at five-year intervals plan to spend their time with good food and drinks while they reminisce, remembering their youth and good times. The memory of Isobel's death haunts them still. It has been fifty years since they first met, but how well do they know each other? Have they been involved over the years?