Ann Cleeves OBE (born in 1954 in Herefordshire, England) is an English author of mystery and crime fiction. She's best known for creating detectives DCI Vera Stanhope, DI Jimmy Perez and DI Matthew Venn, each the protagonist of their own series. All three series have been adapted for TV.
Cleeves was raised in northern Devon and moved to the island of Hilbre after marrying her husband, an ornithologist, where she first took up writing out of boredom. In the 1980s, Ann, her husband and their daughters moved to Northumberland, which provided much inspiration for her subsequent novels; many of her stories are set in the north-east of England. Cleeves has written over 30 books, many of which are bestsellers; she has won or been nominated for various literary awards, including being appointed an OBE in 2022 for services to reading and libraries.
Not to be confused with Henry VIII's fourth wife, Anne of Cleves.
Works include:
George and Molly series
- A Bird in the Hand (1986)
- Come Death and High Water (1987)
- Murder in Paradise (1988)
- A Prey to Murder (1989)
- Another Man's Poison (1992)
- Sea Fever (1993)
- The Mill on the Shore (1994)
- High Island Blues (1996)
Inspector Ramsay
- A Lesson in Dying (1990)
- Murder in My Backyard (1991)
- A Day in the Death of Dorothea Cassidy (1992)
- Killjoy (1993)
- The Healers (1995)
- The Baby Snatcher (1997)
Vera Stanhope
Adapted into the series Vera.- The Crow Trap (1999)
- Telling Tales (2005)
- Hidden Depths (2007)
- Silent Voices (2011)
- The Glass Room (2012)
- Harbour Street (2014)
- The Moth Catcher (2015)
- The Seagull (2017)
- The Darkest Evening (2020)
- The Rising Tide (2022)
Shetland
Adapted into the series Shetland.- The Four Seasons Quartet
- Raven Black (2006)
- White Nights (2008)
- Red Bones (2009)
- Blue Lightning (2010)
- The Four Elements Quartet
- Dead Water (2013)
- Thin Air (2014)
- Cold Earth (2016)
- "Too Good to Be True" (2016) - short story
- Wild Fire (2018)
Two Rivers
The first book was adapted into the series The Long Call.- The Long Call (2019)
- The Heron's Cry (2021)
- "The Girls on the Shore" (2022) - short story
- The Raging Storm (2023)
Standalone novels
- The Sleeping and the Dead (2001)
- Burial of Ghosts (2003)
Tropes found in her works include:
- Approval of God: DS Alison "Tosh" McIntosh was an original character created for the TV adaptation of Shetland, although Cleeves has stated she enjoys Tosh (to the point she's her favourite character in the TV show) and wishes she'd written her herself. In a broader sense, Cleeves stated that although Shetland often deviates from her books in terms of plot details, she felt that "The writers and directors and the actors have captured the essence of the books and the characters", adding that one of her favourite storylines from the show was Series 3, which wasn't based on her books.
- Contest Winner Cameo: Dougie Barr, a major character in the Shetland novel Blue Lightning, was named for a charity auction winner. The character shares his namesake's love of Irn-Bru.
- Creator Provincialism: Many of her books are set in the north-east of England, especially Northumberland, including the Inspector Ramsay series and Vera Stanhope series. Cleeves herself has lived there for decades.
- Sequel Gap: The second Vera novel, Telling Tales, was published six years after the first, The Crow Trap. The rest of the novels have one-to-three years between releases.
- Theme Naming: Applies to the Shetland novels . The Four Seasons Quartet all have different colours in their titles (black, white, red and blue) while The Four Elements Quartet are appropriately titled after the four classical Western elements (water, air, earth and fire).
- Write Who You Know: Cleeves has admitted that the character of Vera was based on the tough older women she had met through the years, especially her maternal grandmother.
