The Long Call by Ann Cleeves is the first of her books I've read and the first in a new series. I loved it. I really like her protagonist, Matthew Venn. He is the police inspector who solves the crimes despite his low confidence in himself. He was raised in a home where there was little love shown him from a mother who was a religious zealot and a father who loved her enough to follow. We open as his father has just died but Matthew doesn't go to the funeral: he is certain he will be unwelcome and refuses to cause a scene. He is a cop in a small community in North Devonshire and lives with his husband in a house near the beach outside town. He loves his life but is firm in his belief that he doesn't deserve it, or the husband he loves.
A man is discovered stabbed to death on the beach, a short way from Matthew's home. At first glance he appears to be a homeless drunk but as the investigation moves forward, more and more is learned about him. A Down's Syndrome woman is snatched from the local centre. The is the daughter of the best friend of Matthew's mother, who totally breaks her protocol and calls and asks Matthew for his help, which he willingly gives, both in the desire to have her see him differently and because the woman is loosely connected to the murdered man on the beach.

The characters were complex and not entirely likable, even the other police. The mystery was totally relatable in that it centered around daily lives of ordinary people. Matthew, the protagonist, was likable and human. His relationship with his husband, Jonathon, was not idealized but was ideal. This crime affected them both, in different ways, as it did most of the people involved. It was mesmerizing to be a both a part of solving the crime, but in being affected by its gravity. The Long Call is an excellent read and I recommend it. I look forward to the next in the series.

I received a free ARC of the Long Call. All interpretations and opinions are solely my own. #netgalley #thelongcall

Can a book be minimalist and over descriptive at the same time? In the sparseness of this book, you will find the complexity that is DI Matthew Venn, a man raised in a strict religious sect who was shunned when he married Jonathan Church. Opposites in so many ways, Matthew and Jonathan’s worlds collide when young women, each diagnosed with Down syndrome, are missing from an arts center that Jonathan manages.

The story gets twisty and the reader is expected to put a few ragged edges together, but in doing so, you are left with an encompassing story of a group of dedicated people trying to link a body on the beach with the missing girls and how their stories are intertwined.

This is not a quick read. The setting is dark and drab but at the same time all-encompassing. It is an odd collaboration of people, places, and cultures, yet the reader is inexplicably pulled by the snippets of interpersonal relationships which are drawing people apart yet bring them together.

Complex and intriguing plot and with the intdoduction of her newest detective gay, married, ex-evangelical Matthew Venn! If you know Cleeves work you will appreciate her descriptions of Devon and the area and helps in the introduction of this new, addictive detective.
Clever, a great cast of characters and another page-turner. Get cozy and enjoy!

This book is set in North Devon England. Though a bit unsure of himself, DI Matthew Venn, a 40ish gay man, is involved in his first big murder inquiry after the discovery of a dead body on the sands. One of the first things noticed on the body is a tattoo of an albatross on his neck. DI Venn is familiar with the area, having grown up with his parents, who belong to a strict evangelical church, known as the Barum Brethren. Venn was ostracized by his family and the community when he renounced their faith and their God. Venn also regrets that his father, who has recently died, and he never reconciled. Two other law enforcement types work with Venn on this case: newly relocated DS Jen Rafferty, who left with her children, leaving her abusive husband in Liverpool, and Ross May, who rumor has it, is the eyes and ears of DCI Joe Oldham, making others leery of him. In addition, Venn's partner, Jonathan is the head of The Woodyard, a community center offering arts, a cafe, as well as a day center for learning disabled adults. The dead man turns out to be Simon Walden, who is involved with The Woodyard. Because of his connection, Venn is somewhat bothered by his personal connections to The Woodyard and must work through that in addition to solving the case. Venn must now use all his abilities to figure out who killed Simon Walden and how everything fits into place in this mystery.

This book is a bit slow moving, as it focuses on the characters thoughts and emotions a lot, though the story’s pace does pick up at the end, however. Multiple plots, characters and connections make it a powerful read that will keep almost any reader interested. Likewise, it presents a good picture of the area and the people who live there as well as of controlling organizations and how they impact everyone around. I liked the characterization of Venn and his partner Johnathan, and how they were different but alike and complimented each other. The characters and plot are also interwoven in a delightful manner by the author. This is a refreshing read for anyone looking for one. I received this from NetGalley to read and review.

A gripping and well written mystery. The Long Call is a must for lovers of Tana French and Louise Penny. When a murder causes Detective Mathew Venn to return to the strict religious community that previously shunned him, old wounds are reopened. The victim, a seemingly solitary and lonely drifter, appears to have many connections to a group of wealthy philanthropists and a community center that houses programs for adults with disabilities. As the case unfolds, Detective Venn finds himself at odds with his team and questions his own ability to investigate fairly.
A wonderful book full of twists and turns, The Long Call is not one to be missed.
Thank you to Netgalley and the Publisher for the opportunity to read and review this title. All opinions are my own.

Received in exchange for a honest review.

This was really good. I went into this not knowing who Ann Cleeves was and anything about her other books and came out wanting to read more.

The book was well written and full of twists, turns and intrigue. The characters just grab you from the beginning as does the storyline and they don’t let you go. We watch Matthew deal with his past and push through the pain and emotions he is feeling while trying to solve the mystery of what is going on.

I liked how Matthew’s childhood and his experiences play a part in how he solves this mystery and what is going on. How Matthew is more than just his upbringing and how he has overcome so much to become who he is now. How the story captivates you and keeps you on your toes.

I enjoyed learning about Matthew and really getting to know the detective and his partner, even though we don’t learn much of him he does play a part in who Matthew is now. His partner also plays a part in how Matthew learns about some of his victims and people involve because of where he works. Matthew is able to use all aspects of his life lessons and life to solve this mystery and figure out who killed the man with the tattoo and why but also how the girls tie into everything and why they are being taken. I love how he is able to understand and talk to all walks of life and be empathatic to everyone while still being able to distance himself and do his job.

The story itself is intriguing and alluring. You don’t really know which way it will go and you get to see the way the detective works and thinks which is really fascinating. A great mystery that had me from eginning to end and I can’t wait until the next one comes out. I love being kept on my toes guessing in a good mystery that has so many curveballs you are left on the edge of your seat.

I am a fan of Ann Cleeves, Vera and Shetland. This was a great read. I thoroughly enjoyed. Love the new characters. Looking forward to more great mysteries. Highly recommend. Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin's Press, and Ann Cleeves for the ARC to review.

The Long Call is the First in a new series from Ann Cleeves. It is very well written and has incredibly strong characters.

Detective Matthew Venn has been separated from his family and the deeply religious community that he grew up for quite some time. Then a body is found on a beach and Matthew has to return to his past.

This mystery is a slow burn but in the end definitely has a pay off. I can not wait to read more from this series.

The Long Call is the first entry in the new Two Rivers Series. It introduces Matthew Venn, a British police officer, in a same sex marriage and estranged from his mother due to being raised in a strict and cruel sect. When a woman walking her dog finds a man stabbed to death on a beach in North Devon, Detective Inspector Matthew Venn goes straight from his father’s funeral to begin the investigation. While the police are searching for motives for the murder, a woman with Downs Syndrome, who attended Woodyard’s day center and helped in the kitchen, like the murdered man, goes missing. As the team searches for the woman and for a possible connection with the murder, Matthew struggles with a possible conflict of interest because of his husband’s connection to Woodyard. When a second woman with Downs disappears Matthew is further conflicted, knowing his husband would never kill anyone.

The Long Call is a very character-driven police procedural, and these are not happy people. The term “long call” refers to the cry of the herring gull, a cry that always sounded to Matthew like “an inarticulate howl of pain”. That sound is very appropriate. Matthew himself has been ostracized by his family since he rejected the small fundamentalist faith in which he had been raised. And although he clearly loves his husband and is loved in return, he is equally clearly very insecure about their relationship. The members of his team also have burdens to deal with. Jen is raising her two children alone after leaving her abusive husband. Their boss, DCI Oldham, has problems of his own that may endanger his career and that I expect to hear of more in future books. Matthew and his team successfully solve the case but not before Matthew himself is endangered. These characters and their lives have not been so easily resolved, though, and Cleeves has made us care about them and assured that we will want to hear more about them in future books.

Ms. Cleeves provides a vivid portrayal of her locations. Her wonderful writing and descriptions make you feel the sea, marshes and atmosphere of North Devon. She wrote a wonderful story, with an intriguing plot and a great development of her characters. I definitely recommend The Long Call to other readers. I hope to see more, much more, of Matthew and his team.

I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book.

This book had me thinking many different things while I read it. The first reaction was that felt like I walked into the middle of a book and didn’t really know what was going on with the references to things you just didn’t know about yet. Then once I got the handle on the characters and the story line it became much more enjoyable. The chase to find the murderer and the missing girls kept me going but the ending felt a little bit anticlimactic. I think I was expecting more from the overall crime or the criminals themselves. Thank you Net Galley for an ARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I was intrigued by this book. It is very character driven and the story is interesting. I was pleasantly surprised by the inclusion of an LGBT character.

I just found it too slow. Around a third of the way through the book, I got anxious and just wanted to know what happened, who the murderer was. I began wishing for a cliff notes version. As my patience wore out, I skimmed through the rest of the book to get the answers I wanted.

If I had more patience and willingness to get more invested, I'm sure there was a lot of good plot twists and character development I missed.

Disclaimer: I received an ARC of this ebook through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I love the cover for The Long Call by Ann Cleeves and am always on the lookout for a good mystery. That being said, I really wanted to love this, but…

Maggie loved talking to her friend but one day he didn’t show up. And so her mystery begins and she wants answers.

The characters are gay, lesbian, mentally challenged…

Everything, good and bad, centers around the Woodyard, a community center.

It held no tension or suspense for me. I couldn’t get excited by the story or the writing but I am curious…so I will read on. I know a police procedural is not as exciting as a thriller, but I would put down The Long Call, read something else, come back to it, put it down…well, you get the picture. I was bored and my mind kept drifting.

I did finish it and because I had to know the ending, I gave it 3 stars, for satisfying my curiosity.

I voluntarily reviewed a free copy of The Long Call by Ann Cleeves.

While this was a solid mystery, I can’t help but say I was somewhat disappointed. I love her Vera series, but just never felt sucked in to this one. There were so many characters to keep track of, especially in the beginning, and I had difficulty keeping track of everyone and remembering their connections. It was as atmospheric as her other books, and I love the premise. For me, if just felt a little plodding.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for my free digital copy.

This is my first Ann Cleeves book, but it will not be my last! This was really a fantastic read. I love BBC murder mystery shows, and that's exactly what this book felt like. The location is gorgeous, the people are interesting, and I just loved every second of this thing. I'm very excited to have gotten in on book one of this great series. Fantastic mystery with an ending that doesn't disappoint, and I can't wait to read book 2!


A super big thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for giving me a free copy in exchange for an honest review!!!

Set in North Devon, England, a place where two rivers converge to meet the sea, The Long Call is a brand new detective series from author Ann Cleeves that introduces us to DI Matthew Venn, a forty-something police detective who is investigating the case of a man named Simon Walden found stabbed to death on the beach, in an area close to where Matthew lives with his husband Jonathan. After breaking away from the strict evangelical community to which his estranged family still belongs, Matthew is no longer welcome among the Brethren, cast out to the point of only being able to observe his father's funeral from afar. As Matthew and his team follow the leads that emerge in investigating Walden's murder, the detective finds himself unexpectedly pulled back into the folds of the Brethren community, where the secrets of his past threaten to collide with the present life he so painstakingly built. To complicate matters, having recently transferred from Bristol, Matthew is the new boss in town heading up a group of detectives whose personalities couldn't be more different from each other, but who must now work together to solve the case, the dynamics of which add a layer of complexity to the investigation.

This was a well-written police procedural that I found to be engaging and a bit different from ones I've read previously. Normally I would expect these types of stories to be action-packed and fast-paced, with a complicated plot as well as twists and turns galore, but surprisingly, that wasn't the case here. Instead, this was an atmospheric read that was actually a bit of a slow-burn, but not to the point of being draggy — rather, the plot moved along in a way that felt natural and un-rushed, though with an ending that still managed to be unpredictable and also a resolution to the case that caught me off guard. I like how Cleeves didn't just focus on developing a complex and believable plot, but also balanced it with meticulous character development as well, lending a level of depth to the story that made it more engaging in my opinion.

Overall, I enjoyed this quiet but steady detective story that kept me interested throughout. This is the first book in a new series for Cleeves, and for me, it is a good introduction to this author's work, since this is my first time reading her books. I'm definitely looking forward to continuing this series when the second book comes out! As for her previous book series, I understand that two of them — the Shetland Island as well as Vera Stanhope series — were both turned into successful television series; no doubt that this new Two Rivers series will likely follow in the same footsteps. When that happens, it will be interesting to see how this story translates on screen.

Received ARC from St. Martin's Press (Minotaur Books) via NetGalley.

“The Long Call” by Ann Cleeves introduces Matthew Venn of the Devon Police and his husband Jonathan. A body has been found on the English seacoast beach at Crow Point, and Venn is called to investigate. This is not only the story of a crime, but also of Venn, the police officer who must solve it.
Cleeves unveils the story of a whole village, its culture and ambiance, its surrounding geography, and most of all its citizens. The village is defined by its people -- their back-stories, their relationships, and their interactions. One man upsets the tranquility, security, and purpose of the villagers, the dead man found on their beach. They all know him, but they know little about him.
Cleeves creates an interesting and diverse cast of characters encompassing those who are creative, focused, disabled, and conventional. They are a complex and troubled collection, but they are genuinely concerned about each other, usually. They are all respectable people, but some of them have things to hide; some have past secrets that come back to haunt them, and of course, one of them is a murderer.
Details unfold at a slow but steady pace as Venn conducts his investigation. He finds that the people are friendly but not always helpful. Residents are confronted with emotionally intense and unthinkable situations, both real and imagined, and yet as Venn searches for evidence, people seem to be hindering the investigation. Corruption and the desire for power have disrupted tranquil village life. Entitled people are worried about their own reputations, and conspiracy may have stripped them of any sense of humanity.
“The Long Call” is the inaugural book in the new “Two Rivers” series, and I was given a review copy from Ann Cleeves and Minotaur Books. It has all the ingredients that readers love in Cleeves’ work, compelling characters with complex backstories, unlikely culprits with unusual motivations, and a timely resolution with just a touch of creepy but little actual blood or gore. Oh yes, and the wonderful English countryside. I cannot wait for the next book.

The Long Call is the first book in a new procedural series by Ann Cleeves. Set in North Devon, Detective Matthew Venn has returned to the area where he grew up and is involved in solving a murder which keeps threatening to become entangled in his difficult past as well as his present life.

Ms. Cleeves is a masterful storyteller and her characterizations are nuanced and deftly rendered. The dialogue is pitch perfect but never intrusive to my ears (and it could so easily have been over the top). The plotline revolves around a community centre for the county which hosts programs for people struggling with mental illness, depression, and developmental challenges as well as functioning as an arts instruction and social centre for the members of the community. The author's characterizations are sensitive and non-judgemental. The sense of place and atmosphere are so well done. It's a characteristic of her work that the setting actually becomes a significant character in the narrative and this series is no exception.

This was a joy to read, despite the potentially sad themes of mental illness and exploitation. The author is an exceedingly gifted craftsman and the plotting and pacing here are things of beauty. For non-UK readers, the slang and language are British idiom, but there's nothing undecipherable in context. The language is PG, there's no graphic sexual content.

Five stars. A strong start to a new series with an appealing procedural unit set in an interesting area of the English coastal countryside. I'm very much looking forward to more in this series.

Very well written and paced mystery that was just one good read. Looking forward to more in the series. Well developed characters added to the story.

I am so grateful that NetGalley has introduced me to this amazing author. I had heard of the shows based on her books, but not of the books themselves. I read The Long Call over barely a day and a half. It is a slow-burning semi-procedural mystery with tons of character development. The best character is the setting, though. It was a moody setting set in the countryside in a town that sits where two rivers meet. The lead detective, Matthew Venn was a unique lead, married, gay man. The author wrote that into the storyline in a very believable way. Everyone was aware of this aspect of his character, but most of his day-to-day movements had little to do with it, therefore, as in real life, the reader forgets about Venn's sexuality until the moments where it comes up via an uncomfortable or ugly interaction with someone who uses it as a weapon to try to insult or undermine him. The mystery was also interesting, with a focus on some mentally challenged young women and those in the community around them. There is a murder at the beginning of the novel that ends up being tied to several other less deadly, but just as disturbing crimes. Finally, another aspect of Matthew's story is that he grew up in a small cult and was shunned from it and his entire family when he questioned his belief. Matthew is a man living a haunted life. Because The Long Call is the first in a series, it set up the location and allowed the reader to get to know and understand Matthew. However, other secondary characters were throughout the novel that I hope to read more about. There was just enough information given about Jonathan to make me want to know more about him. Jenn, the female detective was another one I would like to read more about in future books. All characters had flaws at least hinted at that as a reader, I am anxious to explore.

So, once I read The Long Call, I knew Ann Cleeves is my kind of author. I immediately went to check out her Vera Stanhope series and the Shetland series. This book just became the start of a serious addiction.

Thanks to NetGalley, Ann Cleeves, and Minotaur Books for an ecopy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This would be 2.5 stars. It took forever to finish this book. It never takes me this long to read a book. I have never read anything by this author before, and based on this book, I am not sure I will read anything else.

I enjoy a good mystery. This moved so slowly and the characters seemed so wooden that I had a hard time connecting with any of them. I think Lucy was the most interesting. She had the most personality.

The other characters didn't illicit much emotion from me one way or another. They didn't have much personality, or were kind of creepy. When they mentioned one of the characters later in the book, I had to go back and find out who she was and what her role in the story had been.

I found it off putting that the person in charge of the investigation seemed unsure of his position, his relationship, and his ability to solve the case. I didn't care about Matthew and Jonathan being a couple, and thought their relationship seemed more like they were needy and desperate to hang on to each other than actually being in love.

There were so many characters in this book that trying to keep up with them and there connection to the other characters became almost unwieldy. I thought the mystery itself was decent.

At times, reading this book was like wading through a mud pit with heavy, wet clothes on. The best part of the book, which also had the best pacing, was toward the end, when the disjoint pieces were being pulled together. Had the rest of the book been paced the same, I'm sure I could give it a higher rating.

The Long Call was not terrible. I would recommend you read it and judge for yourself. I voluntarily read and reviewed this book received from the publisher via NetGalley.