In North Devon, England, Detective Matthew Venn stands outside the church as his father’s funeral takes place. Once loved and cherished by the Brethren, the day Matthew left the strict evangelical community he grew up in, he lost his family too.
Now, as he turns and walks away again, he receives a call from one of his detectives. A body has been found on the beach nearby: a man with a tattoo of an albatross on his neck, stabbed to death. The case calls Matthew back into the community he’d thought to leave behind, as deadly secrets hidden at its heart are revealed, and his past and present collide.

Matthew Venn is just a regular guy - a cop turned detective after putting in his time but also a very good person. He was brought up in a strict religious community but had come to the conclusion early on that he just didn’t agree with all their rules and tenets. Unfortunately, you either agreed or you were out and as much as it hurt he followed his heart. Now with the new case and leads beginning to point him back to the Brethren he has to discover what if anything the murder and the mysterious kidnappings of young women had to do with one another.

The pace of this was to my mind a bit on the slow side in the beginning but it sped up. I did find it quite interesting to follow all the loose ends and tiny bits of clues as Matthew and his team dug into the murder and then missing young women to discover how the connections started to knit together.

The characterizations of the lead characters were beautifully molded together with compassion and love. I particularly loved that Matthew and his husband were treated as not an oddity, but as two people who genuinely cared for one another, even though the Brethren had to get a couple of snipes in along the way. However, the writing and the story itself were both done exceptionally well and I love a great mystery so yes, I highly recommend this book. Good solid writing.


Marilyn Rondeau

As a later comer to Ann Cleeves, I was immediately drawn to this book.
In this extremely clever tale, she captures the brilliance of the North Devon landscapes and present a phenomenal cast of new characters. If you love Vera, you will be immediately drawn to Detective Venn.

The Long Call by Ann Cleves is a mystery set in an English coastal town that explores the depth of family relationships and the impact of a religious sect on those relationships and on the whole community. An unidentified body is found on the shore, and the police quickly determine that he is someone who is new to town, presumably homeless who was taken in by the daughter of the wealthiest man in town. The investigation uncovers deep secrets and hidden motives.
There are some very sensitive issues in this book that are handled honestly and respectfully by the author. I thought the plot had a couple of unanswered questions as it was all explained at the end, but the highlight of this book is the characters. Each character is complex, without being burdensome, and as a reader, I felt connected and I want to see more of them.
I hope that the author sets a future mystery in this town, I'd like to see more of it.
Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

Detective Matthew Venn is the main character in The Long Call by Ann Cleeves. He is a police detective, a character of depth, reflective and quiet filled with secrets from his past. He leads a team in investigating a murder of a man with a tatoo on his neck. The man was found near Matthew’s home where he lives with husband Jonathan on a very remote beach. To top it off, Matthew needs to find a developmentally challenged person in the midst of the mystery of the murder. Matthew Venn grew up in the area in a religious cult and this murder causes him to deal with the members of his old life. His husband runs a nearby community type center which also is somehow tied into the whole sordid mess.

This is not a usual murder mystery, but is one that is character driven with the bleak landscape almost becoming another character. The story line becomes more intricate as Matthew slowly uncovers various facts. I found myself drawn into the book, hoping for a positive resolution for Matthew. The Long Call by Ann Cleeves is the first book in a new series called two rivers for the area of Barnstaple in England. I was totally engaged in the read and was totally into wanting to know how it was going to end. I am looking forward to reading more of this series and would encourage people who like their mysteries to be deep, yet engaging to try it out. The Long Call by Ann Cleeves was a good read!!

A great story, and I really like this new cast of characters. I look forward to more in this series.

Death stalks a North Devon community

A complex mystery set in North Devon in an area near the mouth of the estuary, where the Taw met the Torridge and flowed into the Atlantic. Detective Matthew Venn has taken up a position in the community of his childhood. An unforgiving upbringing governed by the strangling strictures of the ultra conservative religious community he was part of formed him. As the story unfolds Cleeves sets the scene with what seems like disjointed events that will all have relevance as situations unfold coalescing into a fascinating end. His father's funeral Matthew views from afar, a stabbing, a missing girl with disabilities from the center that Matthew's male partner is in charge of, confrontation with the church leader, a powerful backing of the center, the backer's daughter and her housemate a talented artist. Add to this a couple of interesting detectives assisting Matthew and all will mesh to make a surprising whole. The very complexity of this mystery on several levels makes it a great read.
As an avid fan of Shetland and Vera I'm looking forward to where Matthew Venn might go in the future.

A St. Martin's Press ARC via NetGalley

When a body is found on a beach in North Devon, Detective Matthew Venn catches the case. Fresh from his father's funeral, a service he was only able to watch from afar due to his break from a close-knit religious community, Venn finds himself once again drawn into his past life as he works to solve the crime.

Matthew Venn is a great character. He's got a complicated past and an interesting present, and is passionate about his work. Cleeves has surrounded him with equally interesting supporting characters, from ones who will clearly be reoccurring in future books in the series, to one time only men and women who are provided just as equally fascinating backstories and lives.

The mystery was a really good one as well. It was just complex and complicated enough where I didn't see the ending coming, but I was still able to follow all the threads and understand everything.

There wasn't anything not to like about this book. It was a read that absolutely flew by.

I'm really excited for this new series, and am very much looking forward to the next entry!

Matthew Venn was raised in a strict evangelical community but after a year at university, left the community and lost his family. Years later, and now a Detective, Matthew receives a call that a man was stabbed to death on the beach nearby the village where he grew up. Matthew's past life converges with his present as he leads the investigation into what happened to the man on the beach.

The Long Call was a long book, but not in the boring sense. To the contrary, each chapter had relevant information that was unpacked over time. Ann Cleeves did a fantastic job of developing the characters and weaving Matthew's past life into his present. A great book with a great plot!

Reviews by the Wicked Reads Review Team

Ruthie – ☆☆☆☆
This is the first in a new series and I am really excited for what will come in the future, as the protagonists are engaging and the location is beautifully described and very atmospheric.

Matthew is an interesting lead detective, having grown up in the town that he now works in, but estranged from his family. His husband runs the local day centre for special needs adults, which also has a café and arts centre. As the story develops, we understand that the centre is significant in the plot, and that it could be unethical for Matthew to carry on, yet his boss would rather not have to take the lead himself. All these elements build together to give a clear picture of the police at the station and the dynamics. I love the scene setting, the details of the place and its people which give so much more richness to the story. As the mystery deepens, the list of suspects and the possible crimes mount up, but this team is up to the challenge.

An excellent start to a new series, and I look forward to more.

The Long Call is the first book in an exciting new series from award-winning author Ann Cleeves. I’ve always heard great things about Cleeves’ writing so when I heard she had a new series coming out, I was eager to request a copy and dive right in. Well, I’m thrilled to report that everything great I’ve heard is 100% accurate. Set in the small town of North Devon, England, The Long Call grabbed my attention from the opening scene and kept me thoroughly under its spell until the very end.

The protagonist of The Long Call is a police detective named Matthew Venn, and when the story opens, he’s attending his father’s funeral but only from a distance, and he makes no contact whatsoever with any friends or family members who are in attendance. This drew me in immediately and made me want to know more about Matthew. He’s clearly an outsider in his family and community and fears that he won’t be welcome at his own father’s funeral. Within a few short paragraphs, we learn that Matthew grew up in a strict evangelical community until the day he renounced his faith and was ostracized from the Brethren. He also clearly feels a sense of guilt about everything that transpired and that he and his father didn’t make amends before his death. I loved the complexity that this whole backstory added to Matthew’s character, especially when the case he is working on forces him to go back and make contact with some of the people from the Brethren, including his mother.

What can sometimes make a crime novel a miss for me is when I don’t feel any kind of connection to the main characters, so I appreciated that Cleeves took so much effort to make Matthew someone I was immediately invested in. I also loved that in addition to what was going on with Matthew’s family and former church, we also got to see a more intimate side of him as well, as there were domestic scenes between Matthew and his husband, Jonathan. Jonathan is a great character as well, basically Matthew’s opposite in every way, so it was interesting watching the two of them interact and how their personalities complimented each other. The author allows us a glimpse into the personal lives of other members of Matthew’s team as well, particularly Detective Jen Rafferty, who is constantly plagued by guilt that she rarely sees her kids because of work. By the time I reached the end of the novel, I was fully invested in the entire team of detectives and was eager to get my hands on the next book so that I could continue my journey with them.

As I’m sure you’ve deduced by now, even though it’s a murder mystery, The Long Call is a very character driven story. That’s not to say there isn’t plenty of plot to drive the story as well. The murder case itself is actually quite riveting. A man with an albatross tattoo has been found murdered on the beach and it’s up to Matthew and his team to figure out who he is, who murdered him, and why. I don’t want to give away any spoilers so I’m not going to say too much about that beyond the fact that I loved that the story takes place in such a small town because it made the investigation take all kinds of awkward and potentially uncomfortable twists and turns as friends, neighbors, and even family had to be questioned and considered as possible suspects. I also loved that Cleeves had several intricate yet seemingly unrelated threads going at the same time and then masterfully had them intertwine for a surprising yet satisfying conclusion. She really kept me guessing as to who the murderer was all the way until the closing pages.

If a small town setting, a well drawn cast of characters, and a twisty murder mystery sound like they’re up your alley, I’d highly recommend picking up a copy of Ann Cleeves’ The Long Call. It’s an immensely satisfying read.

The Long Call turned out to be a really long read for me, mostly because I kept setting it aside for something more interesting. The writing is stilted and there are odd phrasings and some out of context sentences here and there that add to that stilted affect. Like one lengthy paragraph about Jen's kids and child minders that ends with a sentence about Jen still having sexy dreams about one child minder and his 'tight bum.' Umm... Ok, maybe that was an attempt at giving the reader some insight about Jen, but it just left me confused about its relevance to anything in the story, including the paragraph it accompanies.

This is a police procedural, so I didn't expect much in the way of those edge of your seat moments that make a good thriller, but I found most of this book just plain boring. It did have potential but most of that got lost in the slow pacing of the story.

On a positive note, there is a lot of diversity, which is always a good thing as far as I'm concerned. That said, this one got a little over the top with the characterizations of people. The protagonists are all open-minded and completely accepting while everyone else needs an attitude adjustment because their beliefs are just wrong. I'm about as open-minded as it gets, but I realize that it's rarely so black and white where people are concerned. This book gives voice to the idea that there is no gray area, and it started to feel more like a soap box than a story.

This is my first experience with Ann Cleeves, and I find myself quite underwhelmed. This isn't a story I would recommend and given my feelings about this one, I don't see any reason to continue with the series.

The Long Call is the first in a new series by Ann Cleeves and it is also the first book I have read by her.

On the day of his father's funeral, Detective Matthew Venn receives a phone call informing him of a dead body on the beach. A man has been stabbed to death. Who is this man? Why was he killed? Who is responsible?

Running alongside this investigation is the story of an elderly man who is living with his daughter with downs syndrome. He is being urged to give her more independence and make other arrangements for her in the event of his death.

Obviously, there is a connection between both stories, and you will have to read the book to find out just what or who brings these two plots together.

There are many people in this book, and all are diverse, and some are quite interesting. Trying to figure out the mystery and just who can be trusted is also a highlight for me when I read a mystery. But I found this book to be a little slow for my taste. For most of the book, I wanted the pace to pick up and it does at the end. I just wish it had the oomph for the entire book. The book is well written, and she does a wonderful job depicting characters with down syndrome. This was just a little too slow for me. Many are enjoying this book more than I did, so I encourage everyone to read those reviews as well.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press Minotaur Books and NetGalley who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All the thoughts and opinions are my own.

A body is found on the beach. Matthew Venn is the main detective assigned to the case. He's a very serious sort of person. He and his team are tasked with identifying the and then solving the murder. The story moves a little slow, but moves more quickly as we approach the end. There are a lot of characters which give a lot of twists to the story. It was a good story that kept me guessing. The other detectives were interesting and I would like to know more about them. The ending was a bit abrupt, but overall I enjoyed the book. I received an advance copy of the book from Netgalley and am voluntarily leaving a review.

Thank you to Minotaur Books and Netgalley for a copy of The Long Call by Ann Cleeves for review. Available now.

The Long Call is the first book in a new series by Ann Cleeves featuring DI Matthew Venn. There are a lot of characters and histories to develop in a new series, and that made this book a little slower, but I think we got a good picture of DI Venn’s team and what they are like. The setting for the book is a small town so it also made the pace a little more realistic because I always imagine small town loyalties and secrets being the deepest and hard to dig through.
I really ended up taking to DI Venn and his dedication to his partner and the team and I hope this series continues

A new series by the author of the Shetland and Vera mysteries. Set in North Devon, we are introduced to DI Matthew Venn and associates. I liked the character development and the importance of the landscape to the story. Issues of family, reltionships, and secrets draw you in and keep you there till the last page. I am not a huge fan of mystery stories but have long been a fan of Ann Cleeves and am delighted to have a new series to read. Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of this book.

Detective Matthew Venn is watching his father's funeral from afar when he gets the call of a dead body on the beach. He is estranged from his family due to his rejection of their strict religious beliefs. Simon Walden, a homeless recovering alcoholic, is found near Matthew's own home on Crow's Point, stabbed to death. As he begins to investigate the crime, along with his coworkers Jenn and Ross, new curious details of Simon's life come to the surface. Then suddenly, a missing woman with Down's syndrome is reported missing from the Woodyard, an adult day care center run by Matthew's husband, Jonathon. Then another woman from the Woodyard is reported missing. Matthew and his crew rush to solve the mystery and find the missing women. Was Simon actually homeless? Are the three crimes connected? Is Matthew's own husband Jonathon involved in these crimes?

I enjoyed this story, but it kept me on my toes with all the characters and their various relationships. North Devon seems like a small area and everyone knows each other, but not always in the same way. The book was suspenseful and addictive. I had to know the ending, so I stayed up too late at night and could not put it down.

DI Matthew Venn is watching--not attending--his father's funeral when he receives the call. They've found a body on the beach of Crow Point, and it appears as if the victim has been stabbed. Crow Point is right where Matthew and his husband, Jonathan, reside. As Matthew begins digging into the case, he's pulled back into his former life--one he thought he left behind. He also finds himself in a world filled with secrets and lies; a world where some might do anything to kept those secrets buried.

"The day they found the body on the shore, Matthew Venn was already haunted by thoughts of death and dying."

Well, this was an excellent police procedural; one of those mysteries that you get caught up in from the start. I'll be honest that I've never heard of Ann Cleeves or any of her previous series. That's clearly my loss, and I'm definitely interested in her other works now.

I won't go into too many details here and spoil the plot, but I'll say that this is a great read, filled with all the little details and nuances that you get from a strong writer. I was heartened from the beginning to find our protagonist, DI Venn, to be gay. You don't get a lot of that in the mystery world. His sexuality is a part of the book, but not the focus, and it was just really nice to read about a gay detective. Matthew is a fascinating character, who is grappling with facing members of the Barum Brethren, a religious sect that he grew up in, but of whom he is no longer a member. He is also a straight-laced policeman, and a strong leader who can admit his faults. It will be nice to follow him in a new series.

His team is interesting as well--quirky Jen and annoying Ross are the main two--and I hope they come along in the second book. Cleeves is quite adept at creating her characters, and all are easy to imagine. There's a wide cast of characters in this one, and plenty of suspects, but not so many as to get confused or lost. There's a main plotline (murdered man) and a secondary one--that may be related--and both are intriguing and keep you guessing. We learn things along with the team, as they investigate, which is always a favorite of mine. It's a small-town setting, and many folks are complicated, many have secrets, and it's difficult to work out which secret may have led to murder! (Though I'm proud that I had an inkling about some things!)

In the end, this was a really strong mystery. It quietly keeps you guessing and invested in the story. The characters are excellent, and I'm just so heartened to find a gay lead! It's thoughtful and smart, without any gimmicks. Definitely recommend. 4+ stars.

Have you ever learned about an author, but hesitated reading them because the publicity seemed overblown? I thought Ann Cleeves was such an author, many of my friends said read her, she is marvelous. They were right and I was so very wrong. Reading Cleeves is like listening or watching gulls soar and call. Her clear, bracing prose will draw the most reluctant of readers into her stories.

How fortunate I was to begin with a new series. Her Two Rivers saga is set in North Devon, an under populated section of Great Britain. North Devon is usually the setting for spare bleak mysteries such as Hound of the Baskervilles, or Christie's And Then There Were None. Cleeves chooses a different approach, introducing us to the police force, and to the characters that populate the district.

Her lead detective Matthew Venn, is a DI, who supervises a team of detectives. Matthew is quiet, self effacing. Perhaps it is because he was raised in an environment of rigid adherence to a religious cult. Living in this environment, he found himself to be easily forgotten by both students and teachers alike. He became a loner with few real friends. Matthew is still an outsider, filled both with an observer's understanding of social dynamics and with an abiding love for his life partner,
Jonathan. He is a compelling figure, one I look forward to following as the series continues.

The victim is found very early in the story. He lies on a beach close to Matthew's home. Not drowned, but stabbed. A tattooed albatross on his neck hints to a curse or a burden. Was this secret the cause of his murder? Step by step Matthew and his team investigate the pieces of the puzzle of the man's life and his death. Jonathan knows the victim from his work at the Woodyard complex. Will the investigation create difficulties in Jonathan's professional life?

As the plot unfolds we learn their may be other victims. Someone may be preying on vulnerable women. When one of the young women, Christine, who has Down's syndrome, goes missing, the plot intensifies to such an extent I was tempted break the rules and read ahead to be sure all would be well. Venn might consider the work he does as 'routine policing.' In fact this procedural is anything but. The police and the person's of interest are so captivating, a reader might wish the book were several sections longer. Happily there will be more stories to come

Full disclosure: I received this e copy from Netgalley and Minotaur Books in exchange for an unbiased review. Thank you for the opportunity.

It’s cause for rejoicing when British mystery writer Ann Cleeves gifts us with a new series. The Long Call is the first of her two-part Two Rivers series set in North Devon. The two rivers are the Taw and Torridge. As a teenager, Ann Cleeves lived in North Devon, and that familiarity infuses The Long Call with accuracy and a certain nostalgia, particularly since Detective Inspector Matthew Venn has to revisit his past in the course of the investigation.

The opening is so bleak.

The day they found the body on the shore, Matthew Venn was already haunted by thoughts of death and dying. He stood outside the North Devon Crematorium on the outskirts of Barnstaple, a bed of purple crocus spread like a pool at his feet, and he watched from a distance as the hearse carried his father to the chapel of rest.

Why isn’t the dead man’s son inside the chapel properly mourning his father alongside the congregation? Matthew moves close enough to the open doors to hear the words of the service. He recognizes Dennis Salter’s “passionate tone of a voice.” He pictures the organist “bent double over the keys, dressed entirely in black, hands like claws, a nose like a beak.” When Matthew was a child, “he’d been a member of the Barum Brethren by birth and commitment,” and his estrangement from the oppressive evangelical faith of his father impacts his detective work.

He’s flaked out against “the perimeter wall of the cemetery” when his constable, Ross May, calls him. Cleeves skewers characters like an entomologist pinning a butterfly. Rugby player Ross is a “pacer and a shouter, a pumper of iron” and a “team player except, it seemed when he was at work.” A damning portrait in two sentences. Ross tells his boss to get back because “someone’s found a body on the beach at Crow Point,” where Matthew lives.

When Matthew hit the marsh, the sky widened and his mood lifted, just as it always did. If he still believed in the Almighty, he’d have thought his response to the space and light a religious experience.

There’s no serenity in a death scene; the corpse “lay out on his back on the sand, and Matthew could see the stab wound in the chest, the bloodstained clothing.” He spots a “subtly drawn” tattoo of a bird on the man’s neck. Matthew speaks to the officer on the scene and learns that a dog-walker spotted the body and that the elderly couple that live on the beach are champing at the bit to learn all the details.

Matthew can see his house, Spindrift, in the distance. “A family home though they had no family yet.” It’s a sign of Matthew’s equanimity or phlegmatic nature that he bought a place on the cheap “because it was prone to flooding,” thus making it affordable. These details not only heighten our interest in the protagonist but also impact the investigation.

He’d left the window down and now he could hear the surf on the beach and the cry of a herring gull, the sound naturalists named the long call, the cry which always sounded to him like an inarticulate how of pain. These were the noises of home.

It’s difficult for Matthew to deal with a corpse figuratively on his front stoop when his home and his husband are his refuge. He spots Jonathan through the kitchen window and marvels at their relationship.

Jonathan, his husband and love of his life, the endless optimist, who had lifted him from depression and brought him to what felt like home. He still wasn’t sure what Jonathan had seen in him, how they could be so happy.

Love in all its complicated permutations—like the love of Maurice, father to Lucy, his disabled daughter—weaves thematically through The Long Call.

The detectives eventually learn the identity of the victim: Simon Walden, described as a “lost sheep” by his flatmate, Gaby Henry. Ilfracombe, Simon’s home, was once a “grand seaside resort,” but with the advent of cheap flights to sunny European locales, “the place was trying to find a new role.” The neighborhood is a volatile mix of gentrification, earnest charities, and down-on-their-luck addicts. Nothing is obvious about why Simon Walden was murdered, which discourages Matthew no end, especially since a young woman goes missing.

He felt the old insecurity biting at his heels, telling him he was useless, an imposter in the role of Senior Investigating Officer.

Matthew’s carefulness, patience, and humility supersede his insecurities. He may not be “flashy or showy,” but he knows his community well. The Long Call is a complicated mystery full of red herrings and tempting segues. At its core are hubris and dark, hidden desires. Unraveling the secrets of Simon Walden’s life and death takes Matthew Venn deep into long-suppressed childhood memories.

It has been 20 years since Ann Cleeves embarked on a new series, but The Long Call was worth the wait.

I had very high expectations for this, which could be why I felt a bit let down. The mystery was sufficiently complex, but I felt disconnected from all of the characters and I felt no dynamic in the plot as far as suspense or atmosphere. Again, I could have just come in with unrealistic expectations. I don't think I will continue with this series, but I am still interested in the author's other series.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press for a free digital galley via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.