Ready to discover another great book for this 2021? Take a look…
The Heron’s Cry by Ann Cleeves
Genre: Psychological Thriller
Source: Random Things Tours
Rating: 4’5/5
Publisher: Macmillan
Amazon, Hive
About The Book
North Devon is enjoying a rare hot summer with tourists flocking to its coastline. Detective Matthew Venn is called out to a rural crime scene at the home of a group of artists. What he finds is an elaborately staged murder – Dr Nigel Yeo has been fatally stabbed.
His daughter Eve is a glassblower, and the murder weapon is a shard of one of her broken vases.
Dr Yeo seems an unlikely murder victim. He’s a good man, a public servant, beloved by his daughter. Matthew is unnerved though to find that she is a close friend of Jonathan, his husband.
Then another body is found – killed in a similar way. It’s not long since Matthew’s returned to North Devon with Jonathan, after 20 years estranged from his deeply religious family, now he finds himself treading carefully through the lies that fester at the heart of his community and a case that is dangerously close to home . . .
My Thoughts
In some books, what attracts you to the story is the killer while in some others is the story surrounding the victim. But in this case it’s a little mixture of the victim and the family/friends surrounding the case. With a well plotted psychological thriller and multiple layers in the story, “The Heron’s Cry” is a book quite impossible to not think or talk about.
The story is told with the different voices of the characters of the story; the daughter’s victim and the detectives investigating the case. It is a little bit difficult in the beginning knowing who is who but once you enter the plot it shows the reader the full story, complete and balanced.
I liked how the author made the detectives as part of the victim’s circle and how they try all the time not being too much involved and trying to be objective with the case. I think this is something that we don’t see much in books, because in a small village where you know everyone, how can you be impartial when you are already partial?
Also, I really enjoyed how the book talks about multiple important things, without treating them as “important”, simply a part of the story. Mental Health is something very relevant and taboo in our society, it’s time that we speak loud and don’t be afraid to accept we have a problem.
I think this is a thrilling read, impossible to put down and so layered that it will be impossible to stop reading!
Are you ready to discover “The Heron’s Cry”?
About The author
Ann Cleeves is the author of over thirty critically acclaimed novels and is translated into as many languages. She is the creator of popular detectives Vera Stanhope and Jimmy Perez who can be found on television in ITV’s Vera and BBC One’s Shetland.
The TV series and the books they are based on have become international sensations, capturing the minds of millions worldwide. Sunday Times number 1 bestseller, THE LONG CALL, was the first in Ann’s Two Rivers series set in Devon, and is now in production for an ITV drama.
Ann moved to North Devon when she was 11 years old. Before then the family lived in a tiny village, and as the headmaster’s daughter she always felt like the outsider at school. But in Barnstaple, Ann found a real home. She made life-long friends and fell in love with the beautiful North Devon coast, which still has a very special place in her heart. She worked as a probation officer, librarian, bird observatory cook and auxiliary coastguard before she embarked on her career as an author.
Ann’s been awarded the highest accolade in crime writing, the 2017 CWA Diamond Dagger, and is a member of ‘Murder Squad’, working with other British northern writers to promote crime fiction. A passionate champion for libraries, she was a national libraries Day Ambassador in 2016. Her new ‘Reading Coaches’ project, providing support for health and wellbeing in communities, launches in the North East this summer. Ann lives in North Tyneside near where the Vera books are set.
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