To the delight of readers everywhere, Ann Cleeves – and more specifically her beloved creation, Detective Inspector Vera Stanhope – return in The Darkest Evening, the most recent novel from this acclaimed practitioner of the traditional procedural mystery. As with all of her novels, Ann Cleeves constructs The Darkest Evening to follow in the footsteps and styling of crime fiction’s golden age, while ensuring that all the surrounding elements firmly position it as a contemporary work – creating this timely timelessness to her oeuvre which while hard to explain, is easy to recognize, and proves to be altogether magical and seductive.

The Darkest Evening begins with Vera Stanhope traveling home from a pre-Christmas celebration with her co-workers when she loses her way and eventually stumbles upon an abandoned vehicle. Always wanting to help, Vera approaches the car’s open door only to discover that the driver is no where to be found – concerning enough, but the unchaperoned toddler in the back seat intimates that this is likely more than just standard winter car troubles. Vera is sure that someone is in serious trouble.

Scooping up to child, Vera orients herself and heads for Brockburn, a stately home not far away. This house belongs to some Stanhope relatives whom Vera has not visited in quite some time. Her arrival interrupts a party in progress, but the forecast for extreme weather quickly has everyone wanting to head home. Unfortunately, when one of the neighbors arrives to pick up his daughters, the body of a woman is discovered on the pathway headed towards Brockburn.

Vera is able to get her team into the area before the blizzard hits, but quickly everyone’s movements become restricted. What follows is Ann Cleeves using the trope of the secluded and isolated village in which a killer resides to force Vera Stanhope to reacquaint herself with her father’s side of the family, while also making every effort to expose a murderer. As Agatha Christie and others have done, Ann Cleeves buries a number of secrets amongst this isolated cadre of folk; some are related to the death of this young woman, while others are interesting red-herrings that allow the characters to blossom into flesh-and-blood people.

Since the investigation involves characters from all levels of the social hierarchy in this small village, Ann Cleeves is able to make small, but important observations about human interaction. Part of the search for answers leads to a medical facility where Joe Ashworth is forced to face some of his own worries and demons. Another beloved member of Vera team, Holly, also plays a significant role in The Darkest Evening, showing her growth as a police professional and as a human. As is typical with an Ann Cleeves novel, the depiction of the investigation and the logical leaps made by the authorities feel authentic and accurate; and all the necessary clues are there for observant readers to figure things out, but obfuscated successfully by a skilled author.

Ann Cleeves has now written nine Vera Stanhope books and yet she manages to make each of them feel as fresh and exciting as when readers first met Vera back in The Crow Trap. This author’s ability to transform the standard tropes in unique ways is a testament to her talent and commitment to the mystery genre. Readers appreciate that she never cuts corners on her way to revealing the culprit. The Darkest Evening will please both long-time fans as well as new readers unfamiliar with Vera Stanhope.

Just one wrong turn during a storm led to Detective Investigator Vera Stanhope's discovery of a car with only one occupant-a baby in a car seat. Later, the baby's mother's body is found. Both the car and the murder victim are on Vera's family's estate. Even though she is not close to the family, they are still family and that makes this case personal.

The author brings to readers a masterfully crafted mystery with a diverse cast of characters. They are an interesting group and have a mixture of personalities. No one seems to have a motive or to be capable of murder. The setting is a village rife with secrets and gossip. Can anyone be trusted?

This is a wonderfully readable novel. The past plays a huge role in the story. The investigation is punctuated with sharp observations and danger. As for all my efforts to figure out who the murderer was- I never came close. Highly recommended.

I received a complimentary copy of this book through NetGalley. The opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Thanks to NetGalley and to the publisher for the ARC which I received in exchange for my honest review. This is the first novel I have read by author Ann Cleeves. I was unaware when I began this book, that this is actually the 9th installment in the Vera Stanhope series. The author does a fantastic job of introducing the main character to new readers. It is quite easy to acclimate to the series; however the book can also be read as a stand alone novel

The story begins when DCI Stranhope comes across an infant in an abandoned car. As there is a blizzard, Vera heads for the nearest shelter which happens to be the ancestral home of her father. Set in the Northumberland England, the author's vivid descriptions of a country estate blanketed by snow were perhaps my favorite part of the book. I felt as though I were actually traipsing around rural England in a pair of wellies instead of quarantined in the US during a long hot summer. If you are looking for a bit of escape, look no further.

The mystery itself is fast-paced and reminiscent of Agatha Christie. I love a good locked door mystery where a murder takes place as the mystery is unraveled. The characters/suspects are well developed and the book has some enjoyable twists and turns.

I found the resolution to be satisfying and it was lovely to read a book with a middle aged protagonist. This may have been my first Ann Cleeves novel, but it will not be my last.

DCI Vera Stanhope, struggling to get home during a fierce snowstorm, spotted a car stranded off the side of the road. The driver’s side door was wide open, no driver in sight. In the back seat was a young child, cold but alive. With no cell reception, she took the baby and set out for the closest house. She recognized it immediately: Brockburn House, ancestral home of the Stanhopes, the place where her father grew up. She hadn’t been there in decades. Her father, Hector, was the black sheep of the family, not welcome at family events.
Her cousin Juliet was stunned to see Vera at the door, but ushered her in quickly when she saw the baby. As she waited for her team to arrive, Neil Heslop, the tenant at the home farm, came through the kitchen to announce that he’d found a body half-buried in the snow. He identified the young woman as Lorna Falston, daughter of another tenant farmer and mother of the child.
Over the next several days Vera and her team tracked down leads, interviewed anyone with links to Lorna, and sifted through the details of Lorna’s troubled life looking for clues to her killer. One important fact was missing: who was the father of Lorna’s baby. Vera believed that might be the key to solving the crime.
Vera Stanhope is a treasure: grumpy and disheveled, rude to her team and to most everyone she meets, but with a deeply buried heart of gold. She’s also a stellar detective who almost always gets her man, or woman. All the other characters are fully fleshed out, unique and believable. The ending is unexpected, and yet inevitable. Another winner in this popular series.

While this is part of a series, this is a stand alone book. I didn't know about the TV series but I immediately searched out Vera on Amazon after reading The Darkest Evening.

Cleeves perfectly captures the quaintness of Northumberland, a close-knit community where secrets are created from rumors. It's the middle of summer here and I almost want to turn up my heat during the scenes when her characters are slogging through the bitter ice and snow, walking into rooms and houses that need a fire lit to warm themselves up, and yes....discovering bodies in the snow!

There were a lot of characters (suspects and detectives) to keep up with - I had trouble keeping track of which officer was interviewing who and where. (side note: Is it my imagination or is it Vera who interviews Harriet at the end, not Holly?). I was thrilled that the killer was a surprise - and there are a lot of people to suspect, with motives cleverly discovered by the police team.

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for an advanced reader's copy for review.

I love the Vera series! And this time we meet more of her family.

As DI Vera Stanhope is on her way home the first big snow of the winter is blowing so hard she can barely find her turnoff point. The one thing she can see is a car with the driver’s door open slid off the road.

Vera checks it out and finds of all things a baby in the backseat. Assuming the driver has gone for help she leaves her business card and a note. Taking the baby to the closest house. Her relatives.Harriett and Julia Stanhope.

Brockburn is the family home and though it is pretty much crumbling around them, Julia’s husband Mark has a plan to save it by turning it into a place for theater types and artists. Which seems a bit odd in Northumberland.

When she pulls up to the house it is clear some type of party is going on. Lights are blazing and everyone is drinking and none of them have any idea a murder has occurred on the property.

The blizzard is in full swing and everyone is staying put. Is there a killer under their roof? This is the house Vera’s father grew up in but Vera and her father were not close with them. Now she may find out more than she imagined in the secrets they were all keeping!

This is one of my favorite series and characters! Always a good mystery with the unconventional Vera!

NetGalley/ September 8th, 2020 by Minotaur Books

*E-Arc received from the publisher, via net gallery, in exchange for a honest review *

I've been a avid watcher of Vera since it first began in 2011. When I found out the series was based off books I knew I had to check them out. And I wasn't disappointed.

This instalment of the Vera series takes Vera close to home that ever before. When she finds a baby in an abandoned car, she finds herself seeking shelter with her distant relatives the Stanhopes. While she trys to figure out where the mother of the baby is and why he was alone, a body turns up on the Stanhopes grounds. Veras investigations take her closer to uncovering family secrets that have been kept well hidden. Is this murdered woman closer to her than she first thought? Are her distant relations at fault for this recent murder she's investigating? If not what are they hiding? And how far are they willing to go to keep these secrets?

This isn't my go to genre but I loved this book and read it in two sittings. Thank you netgallery for the chance to read this..

In this latest in the Vera Stanhope series, we see more of Vera’s background as she investigates a murder on the property of her father’s relatives. The plot is compelling and the characters are well-drawn.

I love Vera- if you've watched the series on Amazon/PBS/Britbox (a recent addiction I confess), then you already have a good picture of Vera. She's not your normal character-she 'a big country girl', who is as low maintenance as you can get. Sometimes than can be off putting to those she has to deal with on investigations, such is the case in this 9th
book of the series, where her past comes up to meet her, with the finding of an abandoned baby in the snow. She never planned on getting close to the family who abandoned her and her father, but suddenly she's not sure if they are suspects or innocent witnesses to the apparent crime at hand. It's an interesting look at secrets hidden, and how what appears to be innocent,can actually be hiding a dark secret. It breathes life into the series, and fans of the series will love it, those who haven;t read the series, get a solid intro to it, as it can be read stand alone!

"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 stunning new Vera Stanhope novel, The Darkest Evening.

On the first snowy night of winter, Detective Inspector Vera Stanhope sets off for her home in the hills. Though the road is familiar, she misses a turning and soon becomes lost and disorientated. A car has skidded off the narrow road in front of her, its door left open, and she stops to help. There is no driver to be seen, so Vera assumes that the owner has gone to find help. But a cry calls her back: a toddler is strapped in the back seat.

Vera takes the child and, driving on, she arrives at a place she knows well. Brockburn is a large, grand house in the wilds of Northumberland, now a little shabby and run down. It’s also where her father, Hector, grew up. Inside, there’s a party in full swing: music, Christmas lights and laughter. Outside, unbeknownst to the revelers, a woman lies dead in the snow.

As the blizzard traps the group deep in the freezing Northumberland countryside, Brockburn begins to give up its secrets, and as Vera digs deeper into her investigation, she also begins to uncover her family’s complicated past."

I know I can't be the only one who dreams of inhabiting Vera's world and hanging out with her...especially at a grand house with a storm brewing outside!

As a huge fan of the Vera Stanhope television series, I can't believe that this is the first Cleeves novel I've read, but I immediately ordered book 1 in the Vera series from my local independent book shop as soon as I finished reading.

This case begins in the middle of a snowstorm. On her way home, Vera comes upon an abandoned vehicle with a baby in the backseat. Vera goes to a nearby house, owned by distant relatives, and while there learns the fate of the baby's mother. She alerts her team and the investigation begins. Cleeves plotting is excellent and several credible “killers” are presented. What really drew me into this particular story is the unveiling of Vera’s personal history and the present day interactions with her long lost relatives. As local connections are uncovered, Vera begins to wonder if her family knows more than they’re telling. Their memories of Vera are of an awkward, frumpy daughter of the family’s black sheep and while she still has some quirks, she is also a brilliant and intuitive DI who always gets to the truth.

Clever dialogue, well developed characters, and a fast pace mystery make this book a must buy!

Thank You St. Martin's Press/Minotaur Books for sending me the eARC through NetGalley

Ann Cleeves is such a talented writer and I am a big fan. Her characters are full of secrets. Her descriptions of locations are atmospheric throughout. This book is part of the Vera Stanhope series, and is also a fantastic tv show. However, as with all of her books, this works well as a stand alone. Recommended!

After reading one of this prolific author's other books - The Long Call - and giving it the highest 5-star rating, I was eager to start this one, the ninth in the Vera Stanhope series. I've not read any of the others, but that wasn't a problem at all. I think perhaps it would have been nice to know more about Vera and her teammates as I read this one, but at no time did I feel disadvantaged because of it.

I will say it had me looking up British words and phrases; I've read quite a few books set in merry old England and surrounding countries, plus our daughter-in-law is from London and still has her beautiful English accent, so I'm well acquainted with "torch," "jumper," "biscuits" and women who "fall pregnant" (that last one always makes me chuckle; I'm familiar with getting "knocked up," but down? Nuh uh). But I encountered quite a few new terms here, although that's certainly not a complaint. It just sent me to Google a few more times than usual.

Truth be told, though, I never quite warmed up to Vera - maybe because it seemed her co-workers seemed more tolerant of her than loving. But that's okay; I didn't need to love her to thoroughly enjoy the story. It begins as Vera is driving through a hazardous snowstorm in Northumberland and spots a car that's slid off the road. One of the doors is open, so she stops to help and finds a young child in the back seat. Who, she wonders, would leave a child alone in this weather? She grabs the child, leaves a note in the car, and heads for the nearest warm place - which happens to be the estate of her mostly estranged relatives. She hasn't been here in a long time and, understandably, isn't sure who she'll find and how happy they'll be to see her. On the way in, she meets a distraught man on a tractor, who says he just found a woman's body in the snow.

Once in the house, Vera calls in her team to check out the crime scene. Inside, Vera finds the "housekeeper" - a woman who apparently left a promising career to basically clean house and cook for the husband and wife who now own the property and the wife's rather obnoxious mother, who seems to think she runs the place. The night before, they'd hosted a big bash attended by the well-heeled; the husband wants to turn part of the property into a theatre and hit them all up for seed money.

Finally, the body is identified - a troubled young woman who was the baby's mother. From that point on, the goal is to find the killer; unfortunately, there are quite a few who might fit that bill - including Vera's relatives. Then another woman is murdered, raising more questions. But the closer Vera gets to solving the murders, the greater the chance that she might become the next victim. Good book, for which I thank the publisher, via NetGalley, for the opportunity to read and review prior to its release.

There is lots of intrigue in this story.

Is family all it’s cracked up to be? Is anything really as it seems?

I really enjoyed trying to guess the “bad guy” and the motive in this story. Days after reading this book, I can still picture the snow falling and the hunt for the killer.

Definitely a must read for those who need a little excitement in their mysteries.

This is yet another brilliant current day police procedural by Ann Cleeves - a true master of her craft. With a nod to classic Christie mysteries, there's a grand country estate, the small English village nearby with all it nosy inhabitants, a few quirky characters and an impossible mystery to be solved. The setting and character interplay are rather feudal in conception yet this story has quite the modern feel with its inclusion of current day technology.

In this ninth book of the Vera Stanhope mystery series, Cleeves carries over a number of characters from previous series installments yet introduces us to a number of new characters, not the least of which are Vera's snobbish relations - the ones who inherited Brockburn estate, all the family chattel and the requisite air of nobility. Initially, it sets the usual inelegant yet confident Vera a bit off-balance as she delicately navigates interactions with her relations. However, with an unclaimed child in tow and two murders, Vera is soon on top of her game and directing her team toward a spectacular conclusion.

The writing is excellent and even painterly at times. Scenes are vividly described evoking winter images with its low-lighting, snow, ice, sleet and frigid temperatures. The Northumbrian food references help to remind the reader just how far north in England the book is set. The tension remains steady throughout the bulk of the story, ramps up near the end and finishes with an excellent conclusion. If you enjoy well-crafted police procedural mysteries, then I highly recommend this series to you.

I am grateful to Minotaur Books of the St. Martin's Publishing Group for having provided a complimentary ebook through NetGalley. Their generosity, however, has not influenced this review - the words of which are mine alone.

Usually I really like her books, but this was kind of... sleepy?

Driving home in a snowstorm, Vera discovers a car in the road, door open and a baby inside,but no driver. She takes the baby and finds herself near the home of a distant relative so she stops there to call for help. A party is going on and when the father of the girls serving as waitstaff arrives to pick them up, he brings word of a dead body in the yard.

I read the first third and realized it was not grabbing my attention and skimmed the rest of the book, which is not like me to do. Every time I started to read it, I fell asleep. Partly me, exhausted, but I've been just as exhausted when reading Alex North and managed to stay awake easily for that, so this book just didn't have what it takes to keep my interest. Good story, just too slow.

Thank you NetGalley for an advance copy in exchange for an honest opinion. 2.5 stars

Ann Cleeves is a new author for me, discovered when I started watching the eponymous ITV series Vera. I have never been to northern England, but both the TV series and this book make me want to visit soon! The imagery of the book is compelling and richly evocative. I could really imagine the people and the scenery vividly. The mystery drew me in well and the gradual teasing out of the clues never seemed tedious or overly simplified. I will definitely be coming back for more of my new Vera addiction! I received an advance copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

The Darkest Evening catches my attention from the first chapter and keeps me engaged until the very last page. Detective Inspector Vera Stanhope finds herself a little lost on the way home one night and comes across a car on the side of the road. The door is wide open and she has a feeling to check the car. She discovers a child - a toddler buckled up in the backseat.

I love the crisp writing style and the way the Detective Stanhope’s mind works. She is sharp-with a sense of humor and very observant. Taking the child with her; she looks for a parent but can’t find anyone. She finally figures out where she’s at and then shows up at the nearest house - which happens to be Stanhope’s cousin’s house and they are in the middle of a dinner party. She goes in to gather warmth for herself and the child and later, the child’s mother is found dead.

This who done it has several plot twists I didn’t expect (thus I enjoyed immensely!) Terrific writing that kept me suspicious of several people for many different reasons... I believe this is the debut novel for a new series by Ann Cleeves.

Thank you to a NetGalley and Ann Cleeves for this temporary, advance digital review copy for me to read and enjoy, As always, my reviews are voluntary and my opinions are my own.

Set in Northumberland just before Christmas, Detective Inspector Vera Stanhope is on her way home. In the midst of a snow storm, she misses her turnoff and winds up on a remote country road. There she finds an abandoned car, its door open, and although the driver is not there, there is a baby strapped in a car seat. Taking the child, she tries to determine where she is when she comes across Brockburn, an estate she knows well from here youth - in fact her father grew up in the large house. But Vera has never had a relationship with her extended family who live there. While there, the body of a young woman is found lying in the snow, brutally murdered. Frumpy Vera heads up the investigation, and when a second murder happens, she is drawn deeply into the family she has really never known as well as the neighbors in this remote part of England. This is the ninth book in Cleeves' Vera Stanhope series, and the first that I have read. A delightful British mystery. We love to watch BBC shows, and the Vera Stanhope books have been turned into a series - I can’t wait to read more in the series and to watch them come to life on the “telly.” My thanks to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review the ARC of this novel.

Wow,, Ann Cleeves does it again with another delicious story with Vera Stanhope! This murder mystery hits a little close to home for Vera. I love her thought process and her very curt way of letting one know what she thinks or how she feels. As usual there is no figuring out "who done it" until the end. Very enjoyable, and there is something cozy and warm reading this book set in the snowy Christmas time while devouring it poolside in the sun! Thank you #NetGalley#TheDarkestEvening# MinotaurBooks