Raven Black: Book One of the Shetland Island Mysteries
The basis for the hit series "Shetland" now airing on PBS.
Winner of Britain's coveted Duncan Lawrie Dagger Award, Ann Cleeves's Raven Black introduces a dazzling suspense series to U.S. mystery readers.
It is a cold January morning and Shetland lies beneath a deep layer of snow. Trudging home, Fran Hunter's eye is drawn to a splash of color on the frozen ground, ravens circling above. It is the strangled body of her teenage neighbor, Catherine Ross.
The locals on the quiet island stubbornly focus their gaze on one man--loner and simpleton Magnus Tait. But when detective Jimmy Perez and his colleagues from the mainland insist on opening out the investigation, a veil of suspicion and fear is thrown over the entire community. For the first time in years, Catherine's neighbors nervously lock their doors, while a killer lives on in their midst.
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Community Reviews
This is another one that is part of my “Cleaning Out the TBR Closet” 2024 challenge. This one has been on my list for years (Jul2021). As a fan of Cleeves Two Rivers series, I wanted to check out her other work. GR friend, Linda, helped me decide between this series and the Vera Stanhope series when she said that the Shetland series was “grittier”. Yep, sounds like my kind of story, and the series setting is on an island (Shetland) off the coast of Scotland. Shetland is a small town and I really love small town crime series.
The book summary is pretty worthless, so I’ll elaborate by saying that the primary storyline is about Inspector Jimmy Perez investigating the death of a 17yr old girl, Catherine, who was seen the day before with Magnus, an older man with a reputation of being dangerous. Magnus was investigated eight years earlier about another local girl who had gone missing. Magnus is also probably on the spectrum based on the way that he is described as being “different” and “kind of slow”. Magnus also keeps a pet raven (black), who was injured and can no longer fly. He has apparently taught the bird to talk with a limited vocabulary.
There is also a secondary story of Fran, the woman who found Catherine’s body, who has an odd and somewhat complicated history/relationship with Catherine’s father, Eune. Fran is divorced and returned to Shetland so her daughter could be closer to her father, Duncan, and Eune is widowed and came to Shetland with Catherine for a fresh start. There is also a storyline of Shetland Inspector, Jimmy Perez, who is divorced and who also moved back to Shetland for a fresh start after his divorce. While Jimmy was initially in charge of the investigation, it is soon taken over by DI Taylor from Iverness and Jimmy is not particularly impressed with DI Taylor.
Anyway, the suspect list is not without some rather questionable characters, besides just Magnus. There’s Robert, who lives off his rich father’s money and has a reputation of being the town womanizer with a penchant for younger women (late teens). There’s also Scott, a teacher of Catherine’s who was infatuated with her. Then there’s the secret “boyfriend” that while some have seen, nobody knows his name. It bears mentioning Catherine was quite often not very nice or kind to many and was not very well liked. There may have been those who would have liked to see Catherine “disappear”.
Most of the story seems to flip back and forth between Magnus, Jimmy, Fran, Sally (one of Catherine’s friends) and revolves around the investigation of Catherine’s death and finding the killer. From pretty early in the story, Magnus was at the top of the suspect list because not only was he seen walking with her from the bus stop the day before her death, but Catherine and Sally went to Magnus’s house on New Year’s Eve. So that blurb in the book summary about no one coming to Magnus’s house on New Year’s Eve is not true. Just thought I would mention that; inaccurate book summaries are a pet peeve of mine. It’s well into the second half that a whole new storyline pops up and Jimmy resolves most of the storylines in a kind of frenetic and yet straightforward way.
My overall opinion of the story? It was a really weird story! However, I liked it, but I think I do want to check out the Vera Stanhope series before I decide which one I want to commit to. The character development for most of the MC’s was good, which is vital for a character driven story like this was. The pacing was fine, a little slow in some parts, but not enough to drag down the rest of the story. Once again, the storyline was weird, but in a good way; I like weird stories! The writing style was very good and had me guessing through the whole story, making that ending a bit of a shocker! I love shocking endings! I’m looking at an overall rating of 3.8 that I will be rounding up to a 4star read.
The book summary is pretty worthless, so I’ll elaborate by saying that the primary storyline is about Inspector Jimmy Perez investigating the death of a 17yr old girl, Catherine, who was seen the day before with Magnus, an older man with a reputation of being dangerous. Magnus was investigated eight years earlier about another local girl who had gone missing. Magnus is also probably on the spectrum based on the way that he is described as being “different” and “kind of slow”. Magnus also keeps a pet raven (black), who was injured and can no longer fly. He has apparently taught the bird to talk with a limited vocabulary.
There is also a secondary story of Fran, the woman who found Catherine’s body, who has an odd and somewhat complicated history/relationship with Catherine’s father, Eune. Fran is divorced and returned to Shetland so her daughter could be closer to her father, Duncan, and Eune is widowed and came to Shetland with Catherine for a fresh start. There is also a storyline of Shetland Inspector, Jimmy Perez, who is divorced and who also moved back to Shetland for a fresh start after his divorce. While Jimmy was initially in charge of the investigation, it is soon taken over by DI Taylor from Iverness and Jimmy is not particularly impressed with DI Taylor.
Anyway, the suspect list is not without some rather questionable characters, besides just Magnus. There’s Robert, who lives off his rich father’s money and has a reputation of being the town womanizer with a penchant for younger women (late teens). There’s also Scott, a teacher of Catherine’s who was infatuated with her. Then there’s the secret “boyfriend” that while some have seen, nobody knows his name. It bears mentioning Catherine was quite often not very nice or kind to many and was not very well liked. There may have been those who would have liked to see Catherine “disappear”.
Most of the story seems to flip back and forth between Magnus, Jimmy, Fran, Sally (one of Catherine’s friends) and revolves around the investigation of Catherine’s death and finding the killer. From pretty early in the story, Magnus was at the top of the suspect list because not only was he seen walking with her from the bus stop the day before her death, but Catherine and Sally went to Magnus’s house on New Year’s Eve. So that blurb in the book summary about no one coming to Magnus’s house on New Year’s Eve is not true. Just thought I would mention that; inaccurate book summaries are a pet peeve of mine. It’s well into the second half that a whole new storyline pops up and Jimmy resolves most of the storylines in a kind of frenetic and yet straightforward way.
My overall opinion of the story? It was a really weird story! However, I liked it, but I think I do want to check out the Vera Stanhope series before I decide which one I want to commit to. The character development for most of the MC’s was good, which is vital for a character driven story like this was. The pacing was fine, a little slow in some parts, but not enough to drag down the rest of the story. Once again, the storyline was weird, but in a good way; I like weird stories! The writing style was very good and had me guessing through the whole story, making that ending a bit of a shocker! I love shocking endings! I’m looking at an overall rating of 3.8 that I will be rounding up to a 4star read.
Wow, that didn’t go like I expected at all. In this mystery/murder investigation set on a remote island in the North Sea, e are le to believe that everyone knows their neighbor’s business. Except when they don’t. We are faced with the deaths of two girls, separated by many years. Is it the same killer? Investigators from mainland Scotland come in to help, but it’s the local cop that is connected to the community enough to get the pieces of the story.