Clarts? Free Dictionary says, “ dialect Scot and Northern English lumps of mud, esp on shoes.” The setting of the Vera Stanhope stories—Northumberland, England’s northernmost county—lends itself to regional dialect. Note also Vera’s unsparing description of herself: “great fat Cupid in wellies” is one of her milder self-portraits.

The Glass Room: A Vera Stanhope Mystery (Vera Stanhope, 5) The Glass Room: A Vera Stanhope Mystery (Vera Stanhope, 5)

The Glass Room is the fifth book in Ann Cleeves’ Vera Stanhope series – which is now a major ITV detective drama starring Brenda Blethyn as Vera. It had been a mistake to get to know these people. Let folk into your life and they started making demands. She hated people making demands. The old chestnut what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander doesn’t seem to apply to Vera. Why should being a neighbor to a copper entitle one to individual attention? Vera’s straightforward about how pissed off she’d be if one of her team pulled a similar stunt. From CWA Diamond Dagger Award winner Ann Cleeves comes The Glass Room, the fifth book in the Vera Stanhope series, published for the first time in the US. From Ann Cleeves— New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of the Vera and Shetland series, both of which are hit TV shows—comes The Glass Room.In Cleeves’s captivating third mystery featuring Det. Chief Insp. Vera Stanhope of the Northumberland police (after Telling Tales), Vera and the members of her team look into the murder of Continue reading » A prison outreach leads to a meeting between Vera Stanhope and John Brace, a now-incarcerated corrupt former police superintendent, in Diamond Dagger Award–winner Cleeves’s engrossing eighth mystery Continue reading » Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan. Calling in the team, Vera knows that she should hand the case over. She's too close to the main suspect. But the investigation is too tempting and she's never been one to follow the rules.

The Glass Room: Vera Stanhope, Book 5 (Audio Download): Ann The Glass Room: Vera Stanhope, Book 5 (Audio Download): Ann

DI Vera Stanhope is not one to make friends easily, but her hippy neighbours keep her well-supplied in homebrew and conversation. But when one of them goes missing, her path leads her to more than a missing friend . . . DI Vera Stanhope is not one to make friends easily, but her hippy neighbours keep her well-supplied in homebrew and conversation, so she has more tolerance for them than most. When one of them goes missing she feels duty-bound to find out what happened. But her path leads her to more than a missing friend ... THE GLASS ROOM is a traditional, Agatha Christie-style book, relying on gradual unearthing of untold relationships and past actions among a small group, rather than on modern technology or details of police procedure. There are a couple of early clues that the police don't follow up, but once the detectives gather momentum it is clear that Vera is getting to grips with all the complexities and will work it out eventually – without recourse to the "messages" the criminal is leaving, which in the end turn out to have gone over everyone's heads (will readers spot the references, I wonder?). A suspenseful, professional-grade north country procedural whose heroine, a deft mix of compassion and attitude, would be welcome to return and tie up the gaping loose end Box leaves. The unrelenting cold makes this the perfect beach read. Vera finds the writer’s retreat and— surprise, surprise—she’s just in time for murder. “Academic, reviewer and arts guru” Professor Tony Ferdinand is dead. A woman was discovered outside the glass-walled “first-floor conservatory” where he was killed with “a knife in her hand.”

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Faint feelings of guilt notwithstanding, Vera takes some personal time for her solo investigation. “She felt the wonderful liberation of a truant,” as she takes in views of the bay and steep valleys. The setting of the Vera Stanhope novels in the “windswept coastal villages and rolling moors of Northumberland” is another hook for dedicated readers. Northumbrian Det. Insp. Vera Stanhope makes her winning U.S. debut in this mildly chaotic police procedural, the fourth entry in a series that’s the basis for Vera, a British TV crime show now Continue reading » Those who have read the author's Shetland series will recognise some initial similarity with BLUE LIGHTNING, about a murder at a bird-watching centre, but the author treats this theme very differently in THE GLASS ROOM, which despite some tragic moments is not as dark as the earlier novel. THE GLASS ROOM is a chatty, relaxing read rather than a cutting-edge slice of noir, with a well-constructed crime plot that will please the many fans of Vera. If you like the TV series, you're in for a treat - because the atmospheric but realistic books are even better." Our servers are getting hit pretty hard right now. To continue shopping, enter the characters as they are shown

The Glass Room: A Vera Stanhope Mystery by Ann Cleeves The Glass Room: A Vera Stanhope Mystery by Ann Cleeves

Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival. Vera, present in a personal capacity, calls in the local police and her colleagues from CID. Those present at Writer's House at the time of the murder are rounded up and all but a handful eliminated from the enquiry for logistical reasons. The remaining suspects or witnesses include Miranda, the owner of the house and business; her son Alex; a retired policeman now hoping to be a published author; a young man who has discovered a writing talent while in prison; an elderly famous crime writer who is teaching on the course; and another teacher, Nina, an academic and aspiring writer. By the process of elimination, one of these people, or Joanna, must have committed the crime – though there is the outside chance that a random stranger could have gained access. 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 Continue reading »

Summary

A series of fictional plots are pressed into service as blueprints for real-life crimes at a writers’ retreat.