As an avid mystery fan, I’m not sure why I had never read anything by Ann Cleeves, author of the Shetland and Vera series (neither of which I ever got into). But then I received a review copy of her 2021 book The Heron’s Cry from St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley in exchange for my honest review, and realized it was the SECOND in a series. It came in audiobook format, which I have tried a few times but never been able to enjoy…I decided the time had come to actually “read” an entire audiobook, but first I wanted to go back and read (in print format) the first book in the new series: 2019’s The Long Call.
What a great feeling, to discover a new favorite author! The Long Call is the first in a new series features Detective Matthew Venn, who is working in the seaside community where he grew up. Matthew’s parents were members of a strict evangelical community known as The Brethren, all of whom have essentially banished him since he very publicly left their group, making it very clear he was not a believer. Sadly, Matthew’s parents chose their cult—opps, sorry, did I say that out loud? His parents chose their religious group over their son. The thought occurred to me that his rejection of their group might have allowed them to dissolve the family ostensibly due to Matthew’s lack of faith, while part of their doing so might actually have been that Matthew married Jonathan (an interesting man and a great character). Refreshingly, the whole same-sex marriage issue was never an issue throughout the book, but rather it is just one facet of who Matthew Venn is.
Growing up in North Devon, the coastal area in Southwest England, Matthew had been “…anonymous, one of those kids easily forgotten by teachers and the other pupils.” He seems at first to be a loner. “Nobody cared that his family were religious bigots who’d disowned him because he could no longer believe in their God, or that he’d dropped out of university, because the academic pressure had stressed him almost to madness.”
As the story opens, Matthew is lurking in the back of a church, where his father’s funeral is taking place. As he looks in, he realizes the finality of being ”…cast out. This was his father’s funeral but he wasn’t welcome.” He had become an effective police officer, but a somewhat stoic individual, “more scared of embarrassment than breaking up a fight in a bar or facing an addict with a knife.”
Matthew works with people who are fully developed characters, including Jen Rafferty, “...the best detective he’d ever worked with.” who “…knew that she tried too hard with the men she met, was too desperate and she scared them off.” There is also the overeager Ross, an ambitious young member of the squad. Together, they respond to investigate the mystery: a body has been found on the beach nearby, stabbed to death. As the case is investigated, Matthew finds that the people and places of his past have not been left behind–rather, they are still deeply part of who he is.
The characters are REAL people, and Cleeves’ writing is exceptional (I love books where I need to use the dictionary feature on my Kindle to look up words like “staithes”). I could hardly wait to go on to the next book in the series. Five stars.