The Seagull: Ann Cleeves (Vera Stanhope)

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Despite Vera being the focal point of her tight knit team, Cleeves never neglects her supporting cast, with Charlie benefitting from a recent boost of his daughter's return home, pet DS Joe Ashworth becoming more assertive, although still torn between the demands of his wife and ‘other woman’ and DC Holly Clarke starting to shape up quite nicely. Recent instalments to the Vera series have included parts of the narrative as seen from the perspective of both Joe and Holly, and this has proved beneficial in terms of delivering a more well-rounded feel to the series. I also liked the way we got to know Joe more – his struggles at home with a new family and Holly too. A great cast of characters which bounce off each other with ease. The camaraderie is great too and the banter as strong as northern builder’s tea. Her evidential insights in this series have rarely amounted to much more than going through phone records, bank statements and CCTV, so we can’t say we’re that impressed with her detective abilities; but she is becoming a more rounded character, and all the better for it. Brace chats with Vera later. He tells her that he would be willing to give details about the disappearance of a certain bad guy, Robbie Marshall, who may hold the key in this cold case. But Brace leans in on a bargain for this information. He wants Vera to look in on his daughter Patty and her children. Patty is coming undone after her wayward husband left her. Vera has no idea of what is lurking behind this door of negotiations. Selected items are only available for delivery via the Royal Mail 48® service and other items are available for delivery using this service for a charge.

Winning. It is Stanhope herself—a homely, overweight spinster with blotchy skin, a fondness for alcohol, and a toxic personality—who, using intuition and subtle intimidation, brings all the disorganization to an illogical but satisfying conclusion.”— Publishers Weekly on Silent VoicesOne club stood out from those days, The Seagull. It was for adults who had money & style, the rich & famous. On the surface it was a romantic jazz club, but one that contained many secrets. And someone is willing, even after all of this time, to ensure that those secrets are never revealed. When prison inmate and former police officer John Brace says he’s willing to give up information about the location of a dead body in return for protection for his family, Vera knows that she has to look into his claims.

First Sentence: The woman could see the full sweep of the bay despite the dark and the absence of street lights where she stood. Aaah, another new author discovery! I had such high hopes; the cover and blurb reminded me of David Baldacci… and I was similarly underwhelmed when reading my first Cleeves book. Well this takes Vera to a whole new level. She’ s just as curmudgeonly, still annoying Joe but there is a new side to her here, a vulnerable one and this time the reader gets to know her that little bit more.Brace now promises Vera information about the disappearance of Robbie Marshall, a notorious wheeler-dealer, but he wants something in return. He has a daughter and grandchildren on the outside who will need protection. Brace then tells Vera about Robbie – he disppeared yes, but now he’s dead and he was the one to bury his body close to St Mary’s Island in Whitley Bay. However, when a search team investigates, officers find not one skeleton, but two.

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 Seagull. The Segull" follows Vera after she's forced to go and talk to inmates concerning the crimes they did and the impact on victims. One of the inmates is a former officer, John Brace, who knew Vera as a child. The two of them have long-standing ties since Brace was friends and ran around with Vera's deceased father Hector. The gang of four (made me think of the Christie novel) included Brace, Hector, a man named the Prof (who no one ever met/saw in real life it seems) and a 40ish year old man named Robbie Marshall. When Brace demands that Vera look in on his daughter and her children in exchange for the location of Robbie Marshall's dead body (Marshall disappeared more than 20 years earlier) she looks into the particulars of Marshall's disappearance in the 90s and the people that moved in his circle. On your way up to the Northumberland parts of the booktrail don’t forget to call into the Drift Cafe at Druridge Bay – Vera approved don’t you know. Cleeves creates such a strong sense of emotion—“Sometimes it felt as if her whole live had been spent in the half-light; in her dreams, she was moonlit, neon-lit, or she floated through the first gleam of dawn,”—and place—“The funfair at Spanish City was closed for the day, and quiet. She could see the silhouettes of the rides, marked by a string of coloured bulbs, gaudy in full sunlight, entrancing now.” Never in fashion, overweight, cranky, alone and not giving a toss about what anyone thinks of her, Ann Cleeves' Vera Stanhope is one of the best coppers around,"Of the rest of the gang, Hector escaped a similar sentence by virtue of dementia then death. The mysterious “Prof” disappeared, as did wheeler-dealer Robbie Marshall, who was rumored to have far-flung criminal connections. Now, John is willing to tell Vera where Robbie’s body is, so long as she helps Patty cope with the aftermath of her husband walking out on their family. In a case that’s often too close to home, Vera must uncover a web of secrets and corruption to understand the circumstances that led to both murders. I watched the adaptation of this book in the Vera series (now streaming on BritBox in the States). As always, the changes made are interesting but this adaptation stays very close to the original. Engrossing...This nuanced, adroitly paced tale should satisfy both series fans and new readers."— Publishers Weekly