Ann Cleeves

BLUE LIGHTNING

I unusually for Ann Cleeves want to start with a criticism, no it is not that I didn’t enjoy the book as usual I always wanted to read a few more pages even when I should be abed. No the criticism is trivial, it is this; was it a good idea to try to take a young girls mind off the fact that she was a suspect in the stabbing to death of her step mother in the study, by playing Cluedo? I can understand the Scrabble, was Cluedo a deliberate joke by Ann?

At the risk of repeating myself (no not risk, I am actually repeating myself) Douglas Henshall portrays Perez accurately to the book, in every aspect but one, his hair is not dark enough, he doesn’t look Spanish. But the portrayal of the character is spot on in my view, and again, as I have said previously, I have no way of knowing if the portrayal of Shetland is accurate, but it is convincing.

I thought the Times Literary Supplement’s comment “A fully satisfying novel” a bit mean, it was better than that. The Independent comment “Cleeves is excellent not just on mystery, but on the atmosphere of Fair Isle, and the effect of its strange character on the human population” goes someway further, but even that leaves out the way she describes the characters in her books she does not portray many neutrals, you do either associate, sympathise or despise nearly everyone she introduces.

If you read one of her Shetland books and don’t immediately want to read another, you have no taste.