About the Author
Ann Cleeves is the author of more than thirty-five critically acclaimed novels, and in 2017 was awarded the highest accolade in crime writing, the CWA Diamond Dagger. She is the creator of popular detectives Vera Stanhope, Jimmy Perez and Matthew Venn, who can be found on television in ITV’s Vera, BBC One’s Shetland and ITV's The Long Call respectively. The TV series and the books they are based on have become international sensations, capturing the minds of millions worldwide.
Ann worked as a probation officer, bird observatory cook and auxiliary coastguard before she started writing. She is a member of ‘Murder Squad’, working with other British northern writers to promote crime fiction. Ann also spends her time advocating for reading to improve health and wellbeing and supporting access to books. In 2021 her Reading for Wellbeing project launched with local authorities across the North East, and in 2022 she was awarded an OBE for her services to reading and libraries. She lives in Northumberland where the Vera books are set. Follow @AnnCleeves on Twitter.
About the book
Detective Matthew Venn returns in The Raging Storm, the next captivating novel in the Two Rivers series from Ann Cleeves, the number one bestselling author and creator of Vera and Shetland.
When Jem Rosco – sailor, adventurer and local legend – blows into town in the middle of an autumn gale, the residents of Greystone, Devon, are delighted to have a celebrity in their midst. The residents think nothing of it when Rosco disappears again; that’s the sort of man he is.
Until the lifeboat is launched to a hoax call-out during a raging storm and his body is found in a dinghy, anchored off Scully Cove, a place with legends of its own.
This is an uncomfortable case for DI Matthew Venn. He came to the remote village as a child, its community populated by the Barum Brethren that he parted ways with, so when superstition and rumour mix and another body is found in the cove, Matthew soon finds his judgement clouded.
Review
Jem Rosco has returned home - a place where he can find peace from the world and await a certain person. Nobody knows who is he waiting for, in fact it's become a bit of a mystery to the people in the community. The kind of mystery that keeps them invested, keeps them waiting and watching. Who is Jem waiting for and why? Only a few weeks later he is dead and he leaves more questions behind, especially about who might have wanted to kill him.
Matthew Venn and his team are called in to investigate, and it soon becomes clear that a community that appears quite innocent on the surface, does in fact have plenty to hide. Venn knows that personally, his own experiences have left suspicions and scars. His memories shed a completely different light on the matter.
There is a hint of Christie floating on the waves, the way the sense of evil lurks in the background and the plot itself plays out. I can't get too specific, because it would give the game away. Needless to say there is more to this story and each and every person than meets the eye.
I'd love to see this on the screen with a strong ensemble cast fighting to outshine the atmospheric surroundings, as trademark Cleeves leaves her stamp with another memorable and riveting read.
Buy The Raging Storm at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher: Pan Macmillan; pub date 31st August 2023, priced £20.00 H/B. Buy at Amazon com.
