Last year, I had the joy of discovering a new favorite author…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. I loved both of those books, so I was happy to have the opportunity (thanks to t. Martin’s/Minotaur and NetGalley) to read and review Ms. Cleeves’s latest, The Rising Tide (#10 in the Vera Stanhope series). 

It is sort of a “Big-Chill-goes-to-the-shore” story. A group of old friends has been meeting regularly for reunions, going back to where they had all met in the first place, on a school trip fifty years ago. The place is an island which is regularly cut off by the tide (hence the title), and on the first day of their reunion, one of them is found, hanging. Not a great start for a happy reunion of friends…but then, maybe there are secrets??? Detective Inspector Vera Stanhope is called in, and when Vera learns the dead man was just recently fired following allegations of misconduct, she begins the process of unraveling the secrets, both current and from long ago. 

It’s a great read, and while I’m not sure I want to dive in to an entire series with Vera, I am now definitely a fan of Anne Cleeves’s writing. Four stars.