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I've heard plenty of other readers raving about Anne Cleeves and I've always meant to catch up on her back catalogue. But I admit to having been put off a tad by her representation of Inspector Vera Stanhope (yes, OK, you've said once or twice that she's fat and ugly and drinks too much – now get on with the story, already!) In the Shetland series we've got a male hero, and if he's not quite on a pedestal, we know from the start that he's a good egg who's devoted to the remote region, his job, his parents and fiancée Fran, and doesn't over-partake of the falling-down juice. It's a rough journey home for Inspector Jimmy Perez, though, as autumn storms cut off Fair Isle with he and Fran stranded at his parents' home. And then, following the engagement party laid on for the couple by his mother, a body is found. Central to the book is the field centre, populated by eccentric birdwatchers and an eminently sane and sensible cook. You won't have any trouble working out who's going to be found dead with bird feathers threaded through their hair. BLUE LIGHTNING crackles with atmosphere and tension. Cleeves uses the storm as a device to ensure the pool of potential killers is small. And she focuses in on the centre and the people based there – we actually see very little of the island itself and of the residents. Cleeves' strengths are her attention to detail and her characterisation. Oddly enough, Jimmy isn't the most interesting character there by quite some way. He has the feel of a solid, dependable chunk of rock hewn from the raw landscape. The female characters fare the best, namely Fran the artist, arrogant centre boss Angela, and Jane the cook who is escaping from her previous straitjacketed life. The islanders – particularly Jimmy's mother Mary – seem under-drawn in places, but they may have had more time centre stage in earlier books in the series for all I know. . . I read BLUE LIGHTNING at night with the rain pelting down outside. It's meticulous crime fiction which does its job outstandingly of whisking the reader away to other worlds, and provides the reader with an almighty jolt just as it seems to be plain sailing at the end. And it's made me want to investigate those earlier books in the series.
Reviewed by Sharon Wheeler, February 2010
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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