I love the Brits.. I love British novels.. whodunnits… period pieces.. any of Cleeves works as well. So I totally recommend The Raging Storm. Her ability to create the atmosphere of this tiny village in Devon and it’s inhabitants for me is part of the British esthetic of English storytelling. She is a master. This novel does not disappoint.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher I was able to get an ARC copy (ebook format) of Ann Cleeve's latest book.
The Raging Storm, the third book in the Two Rivers series. DI Matthew Venn is sent to the town in which he grew up, to investigate the murder of a once famous local legend. Venn's childhood memories of growing up in the town of Greystone, Devon, are not a particularly happy ones. With the assistance of the local police and his team, Venn searches for this strange murder and later runs into another murder. Are they related, or just coincidence during the stormy weather?
Once again Ms. Cleeves envelops the reader not only with the mystery of the case, but with the beauty and violence of the location.
As with any of Ann Cleeves' books, I recommend this twisting, turning mystery.

"Skulls and bones and the white, white light."

I enjoy television shows from Great Britain. Ann Cleeves has created very clever and loveable characters with Vera and the Shetland series in her novels made into tv shows. I chose to start reading some of her books and recently received The Raging Storm which is to be released in September 2023.
This is the third book in the Two River series and is stand-alone if you haven't read the others.
Inspector Matthew Venn and his team are assigned to the village of Greystone to investigate a mysterious death. Jem Roscoe, a celebrity sailor and adventurer caused a stir after arriving in the local pub. Declaring he is to meet someone special, he strangely disappeared, only to be found during a hoax call which brought a rescue team to Scully Cove. It appears he has been murdered.
Venn has the strangest case he's ever encountered. Things just don't make sense as his team questions villagers, search for clues and evidence. He has personal memories of the area where his parents had brought him as a child to meet with members of the Brethren. This is a cult which he later rejected, and who rejects him, in part because he is gay.
The characters are well developed. They have secrets, background stories and agendas that make for an interesting plot. I liked the book, reading it in less than a forty-eight-hour period. It was hard to put down. I did figure out the main mystery, but it took a while. I appreciate that there is no foul language, graphic violence or sexual activity in the book. It's not needed. I like that Venn still questions his own faith or lack of it. This can give a person of faith, like me, a view into how another person (even though fictional) thinks, the reactions during stressful situations, etc.
I want to thank St. Martin's Press/Minotaur Books for my copy through NetGalley and this is my own personal opinion about the novel. It's a very good mystery.

I received an advance copy of The Raging Storm by Ann Cleves. This is the third book in the Matthew Venn series. A local hero is found dead and Matthew and his team investigate.
As usual, the characters are well drawn out and the story is tightly related. In many of the mystery novels I have read lately the book seems to dwell more on rivalries, and quirks of the characters than the story itself. I don't care about the history of the biscuits served with tea. Cleeve's characters certainly have distinct personalities but the drama induced is minimal.
My only negative was what seemed like an abrupt ending. Maybe it was just me being sad the book was over. ALL five stars!

Ann Cleeves goes from strength to strength. The third novel in her Matthew Venn series finds Matthew investigating a crime in a village he’d visited as a child. The book opens with the raging storm of the title, and no one is better than Ann Cleeves at setting the stage using nature as a backdrop. The coastal town where the story takes place gets a “callout” – the volunteer coast guard heads out to see what’s up with an abandoned boat in the middle of a storm. They find the boat, and inside, the body of a man.

The man turns out to be a well known adventurer and sailor, Jem Roscoe, who had grown up in the area and left to make his name and fortune, sailing around the world. The village as a whole seems to be proud of him, mystified as to why he was renting a cottage in the area, and completely flummoxed as to the reason for his death though many remember him as a braggart. The only clue comes from an observant bird watcher, but beyond this clue, the police are as puzzled as anyone else.

What Cleeves does as well as any writer alive is peel back layers and delve deep into character. Not only does she illuminate the characters of Matthew and his team, Jen and Ross, but the characters of almost everyone in the tiny village. Matthew is happily married to Jonathan, a suitable arrangement of opposites. Matthew is careful and rule abiding; Jonathan is an outgoing creative spirit. The two balance each other. Jen is a single mother, raising two pretty self sufficient kids and beating herself up about the lack of time she’s able to spend with them. Ross is the enthusiastic puppy of the group – needing to be reined in and learning to be careful in his investigations.

The three of them end up in Greystone to investigate Jem’s death, and thanks to the storm, they’re stuck as downed trees cut the village off. No one on the team are too pleased about this (for different reasons) but they set up headquarters in the village pub – shades of Roderick Alleyn! – and settle in for the long haul. When another death occurs the detectives are certain the two are linked, though there seems to be no reason why they would be.

Jem, as they continue to look into him, appears to have been a careless man – careless of his relationships, his life details, and leaving a wake of what I would call annoyed near heartbreak behind him. The slow unraveling of his character is one of the treats of the novel, as is the nature saturated investigation taken on by Venn’s team. As this is Ann Cleeves, there are both heartbreaking details of the lives of the people in the village, as well as the natural world playing it’s part in the story. You almost feel you are on the edge of the ocean, a place, Cleeves makes clear, both dangerous and unpredictable as well as beautiful.

This is an extremely strong entry in this series, and the denouement, with the path of clues laid carefully by this intelligent writer, providing both a shock and a righteous feeling of – of course! – on the part of the reader. An all around lovely read.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for letting me read and review this book.

When a semi-famous, native son returns for a mysterious visit to Greystone, the village is abuzz. When the local lifeboat crew is called out to an anchored boat in a infamous bay, DI Matthew Venn and his team is called out to investigate.

This third book in Ann Cleeves series featuring Matthew Venn has all the usual elements of a British police procedural. There is the usual lack of clues, locals who seem to be holding back secrets, and a long, drawn-out investigation. Eventually, the truth is uncovered, but only after the team’s lives are put in peril.

I like Ann Cleeves’s books. This was a typically enjoyable one. My only complaint is I had trouble keeping track of who was who. A few too many characters to keep track of, without enough distinguishing personalities.

A fantastic mystery. I highly recommend this series and this author. This series is so well written and was my first introduction to the world of Ann Cleeves. I highly recommend all of her work to fans of the genre.

I always enjoy Matthew Venn’s character, and his sergeant Jen Rafferty is great too. But… the plot of this one was a bit farfetched. I still love the atmospheric Devon setting though!

A famous seafaring adventurer’s body is found in an abandoned dinghy….who wanted him dead?

Jem Rosco, a man from a hardscrabble background who rose to international fame as the youngest person to sail solo around the world, comes back to the area where he was raised.. He rents a small cottage in the isolated coastal town of Greystone, saying only that he is in town waiting to meet someone special. A few weeks later the local lifeboat crew is summoned to aid a small boat that has foundered nearby in an area known as Scully Cove, and in it they find the naked body of Jem, dead. Inspector Matthew Venn and his team are summoned to investigate the situation. It soon becomes clear that this was murder, not misadventure, but that is about the only thing that is clear. Apart from the sighting of a mysterious woman getting out of a car late on the night of the murder, the list of suspects is pretty limited. The town is small and remote, and the stormy weather would have made it very difficult for anyone but a local to kill Jem and get him out to where the body was found. The setting is doubly hard for Venn….it is a town where he and his parents had vacationed when he was young, before he rejected the evangelical faith in which he was raised and in so doing lost his family. The Brethren, as the religious group is known, still has a very active congregation in Greystone. As Venn and his crew try to piece together the sequence of events that led to Jem’s murder, they must dig into his past and that of others in the town. The single mother who helms the lifeboat crew and has a son with a devastating rare illness, the family whose farm was lost when their father invested poorly, the man who had been the foreman at the local quarry until it was bought up and shut down, the well-bred woman who was Jem’s first love and whose family had owned the quarry….they and so many others in town have connections to and conflicts with one another and Jem. When another body turns up in the same area where Jem’s was found, Venn and crew must work quickly to prevent another tragedy….without losing their own lives in the process.
This is the third installment in the Matthew Venn series, but can very easily be read as a standalone. Author Ann Cleeves both vividly paints the setting of the story, bringing this bleak coastal town to life in the reader’s mind, and creates a great cast of characters. Venn, a thoughtful investigator still coming to terms with the effects of his strict upbringing and estrangement from his mother as well as finding happiness with his husband Jonathan; Sgt Jen Rafferty, relocated from the Merseyside as she left an abusive husband, raising two teens as a single mother while pursing the career she loves; Officer Ross May, ambitious and perhaps a bit abrasive as he tries to prove his worth to Venn; and the residents of Greystone, with their loves, their tragedies, their dreams and their fears. It is no more clear to the reader than it is to Venn exactly why Jem was killed, nor by whom….and in an insular community, no one is willing to bare the townspeople’s secrets to strangers, even if they do have a badge. Fans of this and Ann Cleeves’ other series will most certainly enjoy puzzling their way through The Raging Storm, and those who aren’t familiar with her work will see what they’ve been missing. Readers of Mary Ann Shaffer’s “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society”, P. D. James, and Minette Walters should also give this a try. I enjoyed both the plot and the writing a great deal. Many thanks to NetGalley and St Martin’s Press/Minotaur Books for allowing me access to an advanced reader’s copy.

The Raging Storm is a strong entry in the Two Rivers series. I enjoyed the character development for Matthew Venn and his husband, Jonathan, as well as for the sergeant, Jen. The police investigation is solid and the pacing is excellent. I did not guess the ending which is a good thing in a mystery.

This is the first in this series I’ve read. I will be sure to follow up with the others. The suspense kept me turning the page and the small town vibe was colorful and detailed.

Love Ann Cleves mysteries. I enjoy reading about the ongoing lives of the detective team and their different personalities and foibles.

Following in her practice of tying new entries of a series to previous ones in order to show motivations and sensibilities of her series characters, Ann Cleeves once again adds dimension to the character of her gay, recovering fundamentalist police Inspector Matthew Venn, in this, the fourth installment of her Two Rivers series.

Moving the narrative among the investigative team of Venn, Sergeant Jen Rafferty, and Officer Ross May as they dig into the mysterious appearance of a body of a famous explorer, dead in an anchored lifeboat off the shore of Scully Point in the dying little town of Greystone, allow Cleeves to examine their individual characters, especially the ties to Matthew Venn’s childhood as a member of the Brethren, and the ways his upbringing continues to influence his life.

In the claustrophobic atmosphere of a small, shrinking coastal village, Cleeves displays her mastery at lifting the veils, one by one, until the surprising climax - that she had perfectly set up - is revealed.

This third entry in the series makes this reader, at least, eager for the next.

3.5 stars

In this addition to the "The Two Rivers' series, Detective Inspector Matthew Venn investigates the murder of an adventurer. Venn is a cerebral and introspective detective who thinks hard about every aspect of his work. This is the third book in the series, but it can be read as a standalone.

*****

Jeremy (Jem) Rosco grew up in the North Devon town of Greystone, where - as a youth - he loved to sail. No one in Greystone anticipated Jem would become the youngest person to sail around the world single-handed, and go on to visit both Poles and the Amazon. Over the years, Jem became a world famous adventurer, frequently seen on television.

After being away from Greystone for many years - during which he became wealthy and renowned - Rosco strolls into Greystone's Maiden's Prayer pub one rainy night, toting nothing but an oilskin bag. Rosco has two pints of rough cider, says he's staying in town to await a visitor, and retreats to the little cottage he's rented.

For several weeks after that Jem drops into the Maiden's Prayer pub every evening, has a couple of pints, chats with the locals, and drifts back out. Then one day, Jem doesn't show up for his two pints.

Later, during a tempestuous storm, an alarm goes out for the Greystone lifeboat, helmed by Mary Ford. Mary loves her position as lifeboat captain, but can only be on call when her father is visiting. Mary's school-age son Arthur has a serious degenerative illness called Jasper Lineham Disease, and the boy needs constant monitoring.

Mary and her lifeboat crew are launched into the water, and find Rosco's naked body in a dinghy anchored in Scully Cove - a waterway with spiritual significance to the citizens of Greystone. Jem has been brutally stabbed, and Detective Inspector Matthew Venn and his team, Detective Sergeant Jen Rafferty and Detective Constable Ross May, come to Greystone to investigate.

Greystone has particular significance to Venn, because it's one of the hubs of a strict religious sect called the Barum Brethren. Venn grew up as a member of the Brethren, but rejected the order's beliefs as a teenager. Still, Venn feels he has an understanding of the Brethren that might help with the police inquiries.

Matthew also gets incidental assistance from his husband Jonathan, whose schoolteacher friend Guy taught Jem Rosco many years ago. In fact Guy helped young Jem join the Greystone sailing club, which led to Rosco's fame and fortune, and maybe to his death.

The detective team proceeds to interview Greystone residents, collect evidence, and look into Rosco's life elsewhere. The squad learns that Rosco had a number of women in his orbit, including a high school girlfriend, an ex-wife, a housecleaner, and a current lady friend. The investigators also discover that Jem was a bit wily and manipulative, and that some people envied his fame and success.

Things get murkier when another body is discovered in Scully Cove, though it's not immediately clear whether this was an accident, suicide, or murder. In any case, Venn realizes something is very wrong in town, and after a violent incident, Matthew figures out exactly what it is, and why Rosco was killed.

Meanwhile, Jen Rafferty and Ross May must meld their police careers with their private lives: Jen is a single mom to two teenagers, and Ross and his wife Mel are ambitious and upwardly mobile. In this regard, Ross sees his colleague Jen as a professional rival, and he's constantly trying to 'best' her as a detective. (This gets quite annoying. 😏)

The book is a good police procedural with a roster of engaging characters. As always, it's interesting to peek into the lives of the Barum Brethren, who must meld their traditional values with their lives in the modern world.

I enjoyed the story and look forward to the future investigations of Venn and his colleagues.

Thanks to Netgalley, Ann Cleeves, and Minotaur Books and Macmillan audio for a copy of the book.

I really look forward to each new book in the Matthew Venn series. Ann Cleeves plots really engaging mysteries and this is no exception. Her development of her detectives characters, demons, and vulnerabilities really adds to the story for me. I really like the character of Matthew Venn, and how his growing up in a cult like religion has formed the man. I would like to see his husband Jonathan developed more in future books.

"The Raging Storm" gets off to a fast start. A famous world traveler mysteriously returns to his hometown after years of traveling the world and is found murdered during a raging storm. Inspector Matthew Venn and Jen Rafferty, his sergeant, must travel to the remote and self-contained fishing village of Greystone at the height of the tempest. They draw information from the secretive residents. Venn patiently spends time with the residents to get past the wall of secrecy and grudges built up over the decades. Despite a second murder, the weather, and the complicated relationships, Venn and his team keep going until the secrets give way to discovery.

Usually, I find it easier to get past the introductory chapters once the details of characters, setting, and location have been covered so that we can move on to the meat of the story. However, in this novel, I found the beginning to be spell-binding with the details of the storm. Much of the remaining chapters were more into the psychological aspects of the character, which was slow for me. Author Ann Cleeves has done it again with another tremendous novel. I look forward to her future successes. Thanks to Minotaur Books and Netgalley for an advance review copy. My review is voluntary, and the opinions given are my own. This book will be published on September 5, 2023.

Detective Inspector Matthew Venn is taken back to a place he visited as a child when a body is found. Superstition and rumor are amidst when a new body is found. Venn soon fids his judgment clouded.

As the winds howl, and Venn and his team investigate, he realizes that no one, including himself, is safe from Scully Cove’s storm of dark secrets.

This book was a slow burn borderline cozy mystery. I say borderline because it did have a bit of edge, but not a ton and to me it was cozier than not. It was a little hard to get through because of the slow pacing, but it was an interesting mystery overall. I would say that this book is very character driven, rather than plot focused. I did enjoy getting to know the characters more and really find out what makes them tick. The setting of this book was also idyllic, and I wished I was there, though not immersed in the crime!

This is the third installment in the Detective Matthew Venn series, and I think that if you enjoyed the first two you will enjoy this one.

Thank you so much to St. Martin’s Press, Minotaur Books, and Netgalley @netgalley for this e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

DI Matthew Venn returns to the small insular community of Greystone, a place he spent time as a youth. A sailing celebrity and local son, Rosco, has been killed. Rosco had returned to Greystone after being gone for decades, apparently to meet someone. But who was the expected visitor? Why was Rosco killed and his body left naked in a dingy. This is another excellent twisty, dark tale from Ann Cleeves.
This is a review of an eGalley provided by NetGalley.

The Raging Storm is the 3rd book in the Two Rivers series by Ann Cleeves, but the first one that I have read. Inspector Matthew Venn is called out after celebrity Jeremy Rosco is found dead in a dinghy in the town of Greystone. Jeremy came to the town supposedly to meet a “special person” and would drink a pint or two at the Maiden’s Prayer pub. He also used to grow up in the neighborhood before his around-the-world sailing trip that made his celebrity. It becomes clear that Jeremy’s history has more going on than what anyone actually knows.

I enjoyed this novel, and despite this being my first novel by Ann Cleeves, there was something familiar about it. Like visiting with an old friend. I will admit that I have watched the television show named Vera based on another of Ann’s novel series, but I have not watched Shetland.

The mystery was great. Tons of suspects with motives, and plenty of history. The atmosphere pulls the reader into this dark world, small and keeps to itself, which ties in with the victim. The fact that this community stands slightly against outsiders also makes everything more suspicious and supplies more possibilities.

Matthew Venn is my ideal detective. He’s smart, logical, but acutely aware of his faults. I like that he is gay because it also shows that he is open-minded to the world around him, even though he doesn’t think he is. Jen Rafferty is a strong woman who fits well with Venn. She thinks along his path with parts that Venn might not. I’m not so sure of Ross May. He rubbed me wrong from the beginning. Too young and too cocky, but he did seem smart. Maybe he just needs growth.

Overall, I rate this novel 5 out of 5 stars.