The Crow Trap
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4.2 • 13 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Introducing Detective Inspector Vera Stanhope.
The Crow Trap is the first book in Ann Cleeves’s Vera Stanhope series – which is now a major ITV detective drama starring Brenda Blethyn, Vera.
Everyone has something to hide . . .
Three very different women come together at an isolated cottage on the North Pennines to complete an environmental survey. Three women who each know the meaning of betrayal . . .
Rachael, the team leader, is still reeling after a double betrayal by her lover and boss. Anne, a botanist, sees the survey as a chance to indulge in a little deception of her own. And then there is Grace, a strange, uncommunicative young woman, hiding plenty of her own secrets.
Rachael is the first to arrive at the cottage, but when she gets there she is shocked to discover an apparent suicide. But then another death occurs, and a fourth woman enters the picture – the unconventional Detective Inspector Vera Stanhope, who must piece together the truth from these women’s tangled lives . . .
Enjoy more of Vera Stanhope’s investigations with Telling Tales, Hidden Depths, and Silent Voices.
'One of Britain's best crime writers' – Daily Express
'Nobody does unsettling undercurrents better than Ann Cleeves' – Val McDermid, author of the Karen Pirie series
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Fans of old-fashioned murder mysteries will be instantly hooked by this novel, the fountainhead of the Vera Stanhope series. Pragmatic, loudmouthed and refreshingly acerbic, Stanhope is exactly the sleuth needed to cut through the confusion and lies surrounding an apparent suicide and subsequent murder set in northeast England’s remote moors. Cleeves creates an expertly plotted, haunting story populated with full-bodied characters whose twisted motives are, somehow, forgivable.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Fans of the Vera Stanhope novels already available in the U.S., as well as the TV series Vera, will welcome Cleeves's intricate series opener (first published in 1998), which introduced the Northumberland detective inspector. Three very different women team leader Rachael Lambert, botanist Anne Preece, and mammal expert Grace Fulwell are conducting an environmental impact assessment to estimate the damage that a new quarry would do to a national park's pristine land and wildlife. When a suicide and a murder rock the project, Vera must sift through the murk to catch a ruthless killer. Though it offers a fine mystery, the story nevertheless belongs to its women. Cleeves thoroughly explores the passions and motivations of each, while exposing the human greed and sorrow beneath the bucolic landscape. The Columbo-esque Vera, who hides a fierce intelligence and razor sharp instincts under garish clothing, uses every tool at her disposal to solve the crime.
