I really enjoyed this British murder mystery. A contemporary setting and complex characters sets up a great new series from Ann Cleeves. Set in a small rural town, featuring a savvy detective, his husband and fellow investigators that strive to solve the murder of a new resident to their community. The case uncovers secrets surrounding the town and the community center. I also appreciated the respectful depiction of the intellectually disabled characters in the book. Would highly recommend this novel.
***Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC***

I love a good mystery every once in a while, so when I saw that The Long Call by bestselling author Ann Cleeves was available for review, I decided to check it out. Who doesn’t love a good mystery to read during the summer months, right?
North Devon Police Detective Matthew Venn has a great deal on his plate. His father has just died, but he wasn’t exactly invited to the funeral. The son of a very religious family, Matthew was shunned by his parents when he turned away from the evangelical community he was raised in. As he deals with the guilt and pain associated with losing a loved on and the inability to change the course of history, Detective Venn finds himself assigned to a new case.
Murder is not something that happens often in Matthew’s neck of the woods, but that is exactly what he is dealing with on the day of his father’s funeral. The body of a male with an albatross tattoo featured prominently on his neck has been found on the beach. The victim has been stabbed to death. As Detective Venn and his team research the victim, they find he has a dark past, but had been recently trying to turn his life around. Worse is that the victim is tied to Matthew’s husband’s place of employment…a place that functions as both a community center and a sort of daycare for individuals with mental disabilities.
As the team digs deeper, Matthew realizes that their victim may have stumbled across something sinister involving Jonathan’s place of employment that got him killed. And when people start to disappear from the facility…girls with Down’s Syndrome who have never wandered off in the past, Detective Venn finds himself digging up some rather ominous secrets…secrets that will lead him back to the community he once left behind.
I love books set in other countries – I get to learn a bit about the locale as well as enjoy a good tale. This time around, I got to learn about the areas in and surrounding the beachfront community of North Devon, as well as read a great mystery. The victim in this tale is quite the mystery. He’s on thing to one group of individuals and quite the other to those who once knew him. He was hiding something that got him killed and it’s up to Detective Venn to find out what that is, even while the good detective is also dealing with demons of his own. I loved that each and every character in this novel had a great backstory that eventually made its way to the forefront. Each character had their flaws and their good points and Ann Cleeves made sure we knew about them, giving us a well-rounded view of every character and why they behaved the way they did in the story.
I was hooked on the tale within the first couple of pages and I loved the twists and turns in the novel. For the first time, I was having a hard time solving a whodunit before I reached the final paragraphs, a sure sign of a well-written thriller filled with all those little twists that have you second-guessing yourself until the end. The Long Call is an excellent novel and I wouldn’t mind seeing more of the North Devon Police Department in future mystery novels! Definitely a great read!

A funeral. A murder. Missing vulnerable adults. Secrets and lies. The Long Call, a new novel, which marks the start of a new series by the UK’s Ann Cleeves, features Detective Inspector Matthew Venn and Detective Sergeant Jen Rafferty, two very different personalities.

It is Matthew whom we see in the opening scenes hovering at the fringes at his father’s funeral. He was raised in a conservative fundamentalist religious sect, the Brethren. Now he is an outcast, not only because he has rejected the religious beliefs he was taught, but also because he is married to a man, Jonathan. Maybe because he’s with the police, and maybe also because of his upbringing, Matthew dresses conservatively in suits and ties. He is socially more reserved. Jonathan, on the other hand, wears shorts and sandals no matter what the weather and loves to entertain. The two men seem to be a perfect match!

Jen is the divorced mother of two teenagers and has moved from the city to North Devon following her divorce. She quite motivated prove herself and shows herself quite capable when given the chance. She has a way of communicating with witnesses and has good instincts when pursuing leads.

When the body of a lonely, recovering alcoholic man is discovered on the beach, Matthew and his team have their work cut out for them. Things get complicated when it is discovered that the man had ties to Jonathan’s workplace and that some of the board members there have ties to Matthew’s former church. It all begins to feel very secretive and sinister. Someone knows more than he or she is revealing. Perhaps more than one person is involved?

After a woman with Down syndrome disappears, the intensity ratchets up a few more notches. I couldn’t imagine what THAT was all about. In a story that starts out feeling rather sleepy and frankly, had of a bit old-fashioned feel to it, this was turning out to be quite a mystery indeed! Why would someone take this woman?
There were more mysteries, too, especially about the murdered man. He definitely had secrets. So did some of the people who knew him.

I love some of the characters in this story, especially the participants at Woodyard, Lucy and her father Maurice, and also Christine. I also liked that Maurice was honest about his first assessment of Woodyard, that he cringed when he saw lower functioning, more physically handicapped clients there, and I loved how he learned to see the humanity in all of them. It reminded me of the day program where I used to work. I liked Jonathan and Matthew, and I wished we had been given a closer look at the two of them. I hope they are featured again in a subsequent novel. I also liked Jen. Her style is a wonderful complement to Matthew’s and she is a brilliant addition to his team. I would like to see her, too, in a future book and see if she can have a social life, because she deserves one. I found myself liking the victim, Simon Walden. Although he had made a serious mistake at one time in his life, he was desperately trying to redeem himself. He seemed to be a decent, gifted human being.

There are also some very unlikable people in this book. The person I was expecting – and hoping – would be the actual murderer was not, although this individual was not completely blameless in the whole sordid affair. I would have liked there to have been someone in the Brethren to have been more compassionate and courageous than those who were portrayed, although perhaps there is hope for one of them...

I wish to thank NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press, and the author for this ARC in return for my honest review.

4 stars

I received an ARC of this book for my honest review.
This is a great police procedural book that has wonderfully developed characters . I found this book to be a complicated plot that at times I found to be slow and had to slog thru but overall a good read.

Murder, secrets, and lies in North Devon, England.

Detective Matthew Venn has a murder in his hometown the day of his father's funeral which he could not attend... not after denouncing the sect he was raised in years ago and then marrying a man. Now he is the lead detective in the murder case, but is it too close to home to take on?

"Nobody cared that his family were religious bigots who’d disowned him because he could no longer believe in their God, or that he’d dropped out of university, because the academic pressure had stressed him almost to madness. He was good at his job and that was all that counted."

The story is a character-driven mystery that draws the reader in slowly with a well thought out plot and witnesses with things to hide. Detective Venn is vulnerable but determined to find the truth no matter what it takes. A good start to a new series.

Thank you to Ms. Cleeves, St. Martin's Press, and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to review this book with no expectation of a positive review.

I really enjoyed this! Matthew was a great main character and I loved Jen, too. Interesting who-done-it that kept me guessing the entire time. The suspects and witnesses were all great and complex, too.

"The Long Call" begins a new mystery series in North Devon. All the characters seem to be trying to start over or begin a new chapter and we are meeting them in the middle of their journeys. I didn't get particularly attached to any of them- whether that's because there was little character development or background or because they only had brief flashes of being appealing I don't know. The main character, Detective Matthew Venn, is certainly the most sympathetic, relatable, and human person we get to know. He's anxious, full of low self-esteem, and spends most of his time wondering why anyone likes him or listens to him. But at the same time he's stubborn and willing to question the big men in town when a murder occurs and at-risk adults start getting kidnapped.

It's hard to talk about the mystery without giving too much away, so I'll just say that it was equal parts clever and plodding. There are plenty of red herrings that still help dig deeper into the actual mystery, although you don't fully realize that until the end. It's hard to care too much about the murder victim for the longest time because he isn't an easy person to pin down- and I started to wonder way before the detectives if maybe the mystery wasn't so much about the victim at all. Thank goodness for Sargent Jen Rafferty, who (eventually) sees the ideas that any devoted mystery reader has been yelling at the characters about for chapters before she figures it out.

"The Long Call" gets an extra star in my review because it does a brilliant job in setting the scene and describing small town life in rural England in ways that will make the reader feel like they are there. You can certainly see this being a series like "Midsomer Murders' or 'Broadchurch'.

3,5 stars

Ann Cleeves, creator of the series and TV Show Shetland, is starting the Fall with a new series, Two Rivers. The first installment in the series is The Long Call. This is my first read by Ann Cleeves so I can't compare it to anything else. However, I have read multiple novels by British authors across different genres. Cleeves' narrative and structure is appealing to the part of me missing the 1994-2005ish British Anglophile in me.
If you like a British, murder-mystery? You are halfway there.

I feel like I have been saying this a lot over the summer. I am not sure if it is a trend or just something I have recently noticed, but there are a lot of characters up front. Again, feeling like a broken record, once you get to know them, it is easy to navigate them.

Cleeves makes them unique and distinct. They are flushed out enough, have their own voice and play their own part in the plot to not confuse them. I'm going to leave that vague as to not give anything away. I will say this is definitely one of those books that will make you walk out the door, look at the neighbor and think...

"Do I know? I mean I know you... but do I really know you, know you?"

North Devon is utilized incredibly well as a dismal, dreary setting that brings an aura of creepiness and tension throughout the book. Starting out at a funeral in this setting makes perfect fest and kicks it off right properly. It is a murder mystery and the setting match perfectly. So yes! Let's just jump right in with a funeral and then a body- but no not the one in the casket! Perfect!

However, here is where my issue with The Long Call kicks in. From there you would expect The Long Call to rocket into the stratosphere of a frolicking murder-mystery. I mean that is the greatest start ever, right? The Detective is at a funeral- let me clarify. The book starts in dreary North Devon with him at his DAD’s FUNERAL and a dead body washes up on the BEACH. Ok.

So, you would expect for the pacing to just take off from there, yeah? Me too. Except, well… no. The pacing just kind of flatlines. It kicks-off and the sits. Don’t get me wrong. I enjoyed it. I was just disappointed with that it didn’t take off from such a monstrosity of a start.

It all came together at the end. And Cleeves had all the pieces of a great murder mystery. It just didn’t keep the promise of the beginning. It is an enjoyable read and I think the mileage may vary by reader. Plus, I haven’t read Cleeves other works, so I don’t have that background to compare.

The beginning and end were fantastic. I would love to see the middle beefed up to fit.

I’m embarrassingly late to the Ann Cleeves party. The Long Call is the first in a new series from the bestselling and award-winning author of the Vera Stanhope and Shetland novel series that have spawned popular British TV shows. While Vera is set in Northumberland and Shetland in the Shetland islands, this new Two Rivers series is set in North Devon. I visited North Devon in 2017 and was entranced. So the Devon backdrop for this tale was an invitation I could not ignore. Cleeves has perfectly evoked the region, lending her story even more believability with a palpably authentic setting that functions as a major character.

Almost from the beginning, where we meet Detective Matthew Venn standing outside his father’s funeral viewing things in secret before he is called away to investigate reports of a body on the beach, it’s clear that The Long Call is going to carry a tone and weight to match its title – inspired by the long call of a herring gull, “the cry which always sounded to him like an inarticulate howl of pain.” The novel is moody but never bleak, filled with wonderfully written characters who each have their own private pain they are working through. While your gut reaction might be, “Man, these folks are all so unhappy,” the troubles Cleeves has written into their lives lends a realistic depth that only endears them to you more. These are flawed human beings, but they are never without hope.

As you get to know the players, from the police staff, to the dead man, to his roommates, to the townsfolk, witnesses, and other connected parties, Cleeves takes time to flesh out each and every one. I like the people in this book. A married gay man, Matthew Venn is not your typical police detective. Cleeves’ Venn and her latest novel alike are smart and sensitive, and she handles difficult topics with thoughtful, compassionate ease.

Because Cleeves takes her time setting everything and everyone up, The Long Call has a slow start, but it is expertly plotted and well-paced, with a nuanced human element that will make it another sure-fire hit series with her growing readers. If you like character-driven police procedurals, snatch up The Long Call and read it before the TV producers get wind of it. Well met, Ann Cleeves!

Verdict: 5 of 5 Hearts. A smart and sensitive start to a new detective series for gifted writer Cleeves

Detective Matthew Venn’s father has died. Venn is not welcome at the funeral so he stands outside. His family is part of a strict religious sect and when Venn left that community, he also left his family. Also, his mother blames him for his father’s death due to the shock of learning that Matthew married a man by the name of Jonathan Church. Matthew and Jonathan are very happy together. Jonathan runs Woodyard Centre that houses a day-care center, an artist colony and a counselling service center.

As he stands outside his father’s funeral, he’s called to the scene of an apparent murder. Simon Walden was a resident of a home owned by Caroline, the daughter of a trustee of Woodyard Centre. Caroline took Walden in when she learned that he was living with terrible guilt over a drunk driving accident which resulted in the death of a child. Matthew is torn between investigating this murder or withdrawing due to the conflict of his husband’s affiliation with Woodyard Centre.

I’ve long wanted to read Ann Cleeves books since I very much enjoyed the TV series “Vera”. When I saw that Ms. Cleeves was starting a new series, I knew this was the time to start reading her work. This is a very slow paced mystery so if you’re looking for a lot of excitement, you won’t really find it here. This author delves deeper than just setting up one thrill after another. She writes from the heart and her characters are very human with all their faults. I loved Matthew and Jonathan and Matthew’s sergeant, Jen. And I loved the British seaside setting. Matthew’s relationship with his family and Jonathan and the treatment of two young Down Syndrome girls are all handled with compassion. The mystery turned out to a heart-wrenching one. I’m looking forward to the next installment of this series and do hope it also makes it to the TV screen.

Recommended.

Ann Cleeves presents a very realistic police procedural in the first book of her new Two Rivers series. This was my first time reading Cleeves and I enjoyed the intricate mystery she presented.

In the beginning, things moved a bit slow, but this was still interesting enough to keep me engaged. With quite a few characters to choose from, it was fun trying to guess the killer.

Detective Matthew Venn and his two sidekicks, Jen and Ross, team up to track down all the clues to find the killer. Each one brings something unique to the investigation and I enjoyed reading how each one had their moment of triumph in discovering important information.

I loved the inclusion of the characters with Down’s syndrome and how Detective Venn was understanding of their needs each time they had to be interviewed.

Even though the story wrapped up, many of the characters have more layers to be revealed, which makes for a good reason to read what comes next in the Two Rivers series.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Minotaur Books for allowing me to read an advance copy and give an honest review.

I've been a fan of Ann Cleeves since the Inspector Ramsay series began 30 years ago, so I was really looking forward to the start of this new series. Unfortunately, I found it to be pretty much a complete disappointment. Most of the characters are rather two dimensional. All three of the main police officers come across as too immature and emotionally unstable to *be* police officers. And, sadly, Cleeves seems to think there is something "different" about a gay character beyond who he loves, but she can't quite put her finger on it.

The mystery itself works for the most part until the very end, but I am only willing to suspend my disbelief so far and both 'who done it' and why was a step too far. If I were (much) younger, I might give the next book in the series a try, but I'm not, so I probably won't.

Ann Cleeves’s The Long Call is a beautifully written, character driven whodunit that not only carries the reader through a mystery, but it also demands the reader investigate the “who” in the story. Matthew Venn, who is at the heart of this new series, is a complicated man whose past surfaces when a man is found murdered on the beach. As a wide net of possible suspects emerges in the investigation, Matthew must confront his own past in order to solve the case.
The Long Call is shamefully my first introduction to Ann Cleeves. She expertly adds so many layers to even the most minor of characters, and the overall effect adds a depth and an enviable level of writing to the story. If you’re one to enjoy the characters as much as the mystery, The Long Call is one to read.

This is a new series for Ann Cleeves. It takes place in North Devon where two rivers come together. The detective, Matthew Venn grew up there in a very religious family belonged to the Brethren, led by a charismatic preacher named Dennis Salter. Matthew had denounced the Brethren shortly after he started college, and has been disowned by his family.

The book starts with Matthew watching the funeral of his father from a distance. When he returns to the police station, Simon Walden has been found knifed on the beach not too far from where Matthew lives with his husband, Jonathan. Matthew goes with his Sargeant Jen to the beach. There is no ID on the man, but they soon find out he is Simon Walden, who was a man living in the house with his social worker, Caz, and her friend Gaby, who is an artist at the Woodyard, which is a combination place for challenged people and artists, having a cafe and giving classes.

Caz and Gaby believe Simon is homeless. The more the police find out, the more they feel the Woodyard plays a part. When a young woman with downs syndrome who goes to the Woodyard disappears, they are even more certain the death and the missing woman are connected somehow.

This is a very well told story and Cleeves is very good at developing her characters. It's very exciting as it draws to a close.

What an amazing new series by the amazing Ann Cleeves!

This book had an epic slow burn in the beginning, Ann was totally building up not just the holy 💩 roller coaster of The Long Call but what I can only image will be a wild ride of this series!

Matthew watching the funeral service for his father from outside sets the tone for this excellent mystery. Making tough decisions always leaves consequences. Matthew's consequences become front and center issues in this police procedural where he is assigned to investigate a murder in a town he thought he'd never see again. Add in the disappearance of a young woman with Down's syndrome from the same place the murdered victim volunteered and the emotional pull adds another layer to the mystery.
Ann Cleves is a well respected author who writes stories with texture and her characters are slowly revealed to be flawed humans that do the best they can to solve the crimes and keep their neighbors safe. This book is worth devoting your reading time and will leave you looking forward to the next book in the series.

A wonderful start to a new series! I wonder if this one will be made into television series like her other novels have? I'm puzzled by the description of it being her first new series in 20 years when Shetland came out around 2005. Anyway, it is very character-driven and the main character has a lot of depth. As with her other novels, it is quite slow-moving for a good chunk of the beginning but once you get past that, you are rewarded with a interesting mystery.

On the North Devon coast, Detective Matthew Venn watched his father’s funeral from the periphery. Since he renounced his family’s strict evangelical faith when he was in college, he’s not been in contact with them. He was startled back into his current reality when his office called to report that a dead body had been found on a nearby beach. After a rough period, the man, Simon Walden, had been living with devout social worker Caroline Preece and her roommate, Gaby Henry, artist in residence at the Woodyard Center, a hub of the community containing an art studio, theater space, café, and day center for adults with learning disabilities.

As Venn investigated with the savvy single mother DS Jen Rafferty and young, ambitious Constable Ross May who has uncomfortable ties to the DCI, a woman with Down’s Syndrome who attended the adult day center went missing. Since Simon Walden volunteered at Woodyard, it became a focus of the investigation—difficult for Venn since the visionary behind Woodyard and the current managing director was his husband, Jonathan Church. Just as shocking, Venn received an unexpected call from his mother. The murder and missing girl represented a tangle of secrets involving his past and present selves, and he wasn’t sure he wanted the answers.

The Long Call is the first book in a planned series featuring Matthew Venn who is unlike most detectives in literature. He is gay, which is refreshing, but also refreshing is that his sexual orientation is not an issue except vis-à-vis his family and their conservative religious community, the Barum Brethren. More than that, Venn generally follows the rules and is less a lone wolf than some of the other protagonists in my favorite detective series. He’s also quite insecure and vulnerable making him very relatable but at times maudlin. I enjoyed DS Rafferty because she is tough and outspoken though very empathetic, but at times (though not always) both she and Constable May seemed to be “off the shelf” characters—the brass female sidekick and the young Turk.

The mystery took some unexpected detours, sometimes making such a hairpin turn I was momentarily confused and had to reorient myself and one character felt more like a deus ex machina than an essential element of the narrative, but I found the art center setting interesting and thought Cleeves presented the members of the adult day center with sensitivity. As far as I can remember, I haven’t read books that take place in North Devon, and Cleeves gives vivid descriptions of the towns and landscape of the area. This is actually the first Ann Cleeves book I’ve read, though, so I’m unable to compare this book to her previous work.

The Long Call was engrossing, and I was overall invested both in Detective Venn and the secondary characters and plan to read subsequent volumes in the series. I think it is a good investment for mystery fans.

This is without a doubt one of the best books I’ve read in a long time. I must admit that I love all of Ann Cleeves’ books and I hope this will turn into a series as many of her other works have done.
The characters are fabulous and wide ranging and the beauty of the landscape is vivid in my imagination. As a beside note, Lundy Island was mentioned on Twitter while I was reading the book!
I so enjoyed this book that 30 minutes away from the end I put it aside to make it last at least through the day! This is the difference between a great author and the ones who publish a new book each month. There is just so much more effort put into the writing and the plot.
I will definitely recommend this book and thank St Martin’s Press, NetGalley, and Ann Cleeves for letting me read this advance copy in exchange for my unbiased review.

I am a big murder mystry fan. Unfortunately this book fell a l;ittle short for me. Ifound it a little too slow and too much descriptive prose. I did find that the book is a well-written one and I'm sure those readers who like a lot of description in their stories will enjoy this book.