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

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In the autumn of 2006, Ann and Tim finally achieved their ambition of moving back to the North East. BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us. The Darkest Evening reminds us that the novels are richer, fuller, and more satisfying than any episode of television can be.

She is apparently so wide she fills entire hallways and blocks out the entire light in a room if she’s standing near the light source.On their first reunion, one of the participants, Isobel Hall, died when caught in the rising tide while crossing the causeway. This is a perfectly paced suspense that builds up gradually, with the pieces taking some time to uncover and fall into place. Cleeves presents a myriad of suspects, trying to glean the motive, which is not at all obvious, and fully engages the reader. THE RISING TIDE is yet another example of Cleeves’ skillful writing, especially including a reference to COVID without dwelling on it. They reminisce and celebrate the school trip where they first met as teenagers at the Pilgrim’s House.

After a quick review of the scene and much to her delight, Vera is sure that it’s a murder and not a suicide.Vera Stanhope is a person who likes very few people, she can be grumpy and tetchy if things don't go her way, but is an excellent detective. The Sunday Times Who doesn’t love ‘large and shabby’ Vera Stanhope, the blunt detective in Ann Cleeves’s Northumberland police procedurals?

Vera as always is Vera, slipping under people’s radar with her frumpy appearance but smart, perceptive and hard on her team although she does appreciate them even if she doesn’t know how to tell them so.Fifty years ago, a group of teenagers spent a weekend on Holy Island, forging a bond that has lasted a lifetime. 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. Vera's tenacity and determination to solve the two present murders and expose events 50 years earlier have led herself and her two detectives into mortal danger. Although the story is written with multiple points of view, it is Annie, the organizer and mainstay, who is the principal of the secondary characters and the one with the greatest depth of character—“The years, stretching ahead of her, seemed empty, devoid of light or fun. She’s put down the whole way through the book, with occasional mentions about how smart she is to, from what I gather, try and detract from the negative way she is described the rest of the time.