The Darkest Evening: A Vera Stanhope Novel 9
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4.7 • 21 Ratings
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
DCI Vera Stanhope returns in The Darkest Evening, the ninth novel in Sunday Times bestseller Ann Cleeves' enduringly popular series.
Driving home during a swirling blizzard, Vera Stanhope's only thought is to get there quickly.
But the snow is so heavy, she becomes disoriented and loses her way. Ploughing on, she sees a car slewed off the road ahead of her. With the driver's door open, Vera assumes the driver has sought shelter but when she inspects the car she is shocked to find a young toddler strapped in the back seat.
Afraid they will freeze, Vera takes the child and drives on, arriving at Brockburn, a run-down stately home she immediately recognizes as the house her father Hector grew up in.
Inside Brockburn a party is in full swing, with music and laughter to herald the coming Christmas. But outside in the snow, a young woman lies dead and Vera knows immediately she has a new case. Could this woman be the child's mother, and if so, what happened to her?
A classic country house mystery with a contemporary twist, Ann Cleeves returns with a brilliant Vera novel to savour.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Ann Cleeves’ ninth Vera Stanhope novel feels as fresh as her first. The opening scenes are attention grabbing, the pressure builds with every turn of the page, and her evocative descriptions will transport you to wintry rural Northumbria. The mystery begins when DCI Stanhope takes a wrong turn in a blizzard and finds a toddler in an abandoned car. When she takes him to the nearest house, she recognises it as the Stanhope family mansion—the heart of her distrust of the upper classes—and quickly feels “the prospect of a fire and beer disappearing". Before the evening is over, the body of a young woman has been found in the snow and the search for the killer begins. If you’ve seen the TV adaptation of the series it’s hard not to hear Vera’s voice in the inimitable Brenda Blethyn’s pleasing lilt, but that just adds to the atmosphere. Best read on a chilly night, this satisfying murder mystery is another excellent example of Cleeves’ mastery of the genre.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
CWA Diamond Dagger Award winner Cleeves's superb ninth novel featuring astute, irascible Det. Insp. Vera Stanhope (after 2017's The Seagull) finds Vera driving home late one night through rural Northumberland in a blizzard when she comes upon a car that's slewed off the road. The driver is gone, but Vera discovers a toddler strapped into a car seat. Soon after she transfers the child to her own car, she realizes that she's close to Brockburn, the once grand family home of the Stanhopes, and decides to go there. She last visited the place with her father when she was 15, and remembers that "the family had been unfailingly polite. That branch of the clan used politeness as a weapon of mass destruction." At Brockburn, the abandoned car's driver, a young woman, is found murdered behind the house. Vera assembles her loyal, if at times exasperated, homicide team to investigate, and comes to realize that the "whole case... was about families, about what held them together and what ripped them apart." This fair-play mystery brims with fully developed suspects and motives that are hidden in plain sight. Skillful misdirection masks the killer's identity. This page-turner is must reading for fans as well as newcomers.
