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.
