📚 ARC Review 📚

The Dark Wives ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Detective Inspector Vera Stanhope has been called to investigate the death of a young man, Josh Woodburn. He was a university student who worked at Rosebank, a home for troubled teens. While she is there, she finds out that Chloe Spence, a fourteen year old resident of the home, has gone missing as well. After diving into the investigation, Vera wonders if these two cases are related. Now her and her team must figure out what exactly happened to Josh and locate Chole.

While this is the 11th book in the Vera Stanhope series, each mystery is stand alone. However, I did see some mention there are recurring characters and their relationships/backgrounds are explored over the course of the series. I didn’t pay attention when I requested this one that it was apart of a series, but I still enjoyed it. I didn’t feel lost having read this one without the others. This book is told in the third person view point and follows multiple characters throughout the story. There’s a lot of pieces to put together. Overall, this was a well-written mystery involving dark secrets, superstitions and folklore, that keep me guessing til the end.

This book will publish on August 27, 2024. Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press | Minotaur Books for my advanced readers copy. This is my honest and voluntary opinion.

*The Dark Wives* by Ann Cleeves is an addition to the Vera Stanhope series, but it stands on its own really well. For those that go in blind like I do, the dark wives are a statue; this book is not about wives with dark tendencies.

The novel masterfully intertwines a modern murder mystery with Northumberland folklore, creating an eerie atmosphere that keeps you on edge. Vera’s investigation into the death of a staff member at a home for troubled teens takes unexpected turns, especially with the involvement of a missing girl and a second body near a haunting local monument. The pacing is solid, and the character dynamics—especially with the introduction of Rosie Bell—add fresh layers to the story. Though the plot occasionally meanders, the suspense and the well-drawn setting make it a compelling read.

Thank you Ann Cleeves, MacMillan Audio, Minotaur Books, and Netgalley for the advanced copies!

I always enjoy visiting with old friend Vera Stanhope as she welcomes a new recruit, Rosie, joining her and Joe on the team. Two separate murder victims and a missing teen that have all visited a home for troubled teenagers have to be connected in some way. I did miss Holly in this install, but Rosie seems to be up to the task. A local witch hunt complicates matters, but as usual, Vera has the mystery solved well before her team.

The Dark Wives by Ann Cleeves AUDIO is a Vera Stanhope police procedural. The team is not functioning at 100% after Holly’s death. They have a new inspector, Rosie, who is as different as possible to what they have known. It was fun to watch her become part of the team. A young man was killed outside a home for juvenile delinquents. He was a new staff member and really, an artist. The first mystery to solve is why he was working there. His parents didn’t seem aware of his new job. The second concerning thing was that a fourteen-year-old female resident of the home was missing. There were a lot of moving parts, to this one, although that is probably not unusual, and a lot of relationships to be explored. They started off with theories and eliminated them one by one.

Vera, as always, is her curmudgeonly, independent self. She is a hard character not to like, once the hard shell is broken and one can see inside. That doesn’t happen often. Her mates, Joe, Charlie, and Rosie are all in different stages of their development, which is due to the excellent efforts of the author. Their interactions range from humorous to mind-numbing. This is a sad story of mistakes and misunderstandings and Cleeves handles it well. She writes amazing and interesting characters who work together but don’t quite meld. The mystery was interesting and took some time to unravel. As always, it is Vera Stanhope and that says it all.

The narrator was Janine Birkett and she did a credible job, taking on many personalities, but most importantly that of Vera Stanhope. She allowed the gravitas of the situation to speak for itself.

I was invited to read The Dark Wives by St Martin’s Press and listen by MacMillan Audio. All thoughts and opinions are mine. #Netgalley #MacmillanAudio #StMartinsPress #AnnCleeves #JanineBirkett #TheDarkWives

3.5/5 ⭐️
I did enjoy this book. I particularly enjoyed how Ann highlights what it’s really like for troubled youth. I used to volunteer with foster care teenagers. A lot of what she wrote highlights what life is like for these kids and I really appreciated the representation. I just felt the story was slow and could have been shorter. This was my first detective novel and I personally feel I need more suspense from a mystery novel. If you’re a fan of detective novels and or Ann Cleeves then definitely check it out. Side note but I love this cover!

A Challenging Case Because The Only Witness Is Hiding

The novel opens with a quick history of how Chloe Spence’s life spiraled out of control. She ends up in Rosebank Care Home, where she makes friends with a staff member, Josh Woodburn. Vera Stanhope is working at midnight on Sunday. She takes a 999 call. Josh was found dead, and Chloe is missing. Vera proceeds to Rosebank Care Home and becomes the responding officer. From this start, an engaging novel starts.

This novel has one main storyline thread. It is the investigation of Woodburn’s murder — most of the thread concerns locating the possible witness, Chloe Spence, as Vera can’t believe she could be the murderer. Then, the thread turns to who can find her first, Vera and her detectives or the murderer trying to silence her. This aspect maintains the tension and suspense in the novel. Vera, or one of her detectives, narrates all but two chapters Spence narrates. The flow is typical of Vera, who distributes various aspects of the investigation between her subordinates with regular status meetings to share what has been learned and plan the next day's activities. This multifaceted investigation is plagued by numerous issues, such as witnesses not telling everything they know for various reasons. Some interesting Red Herrings are included. These aspects quickly captured my attention and held it to the end of the novel. I call the pace of the novel methodical. Some may call it slow, but the pace seemed good for me.

I was waiting to read this novel because I wanted to see who would replace DC Holly Lawson, who died in the last novel. DC Rosie Bell is quite different and adds interesting new aspects to the Vera team’s dynamics. Then, Bell continues a thread from the previous novel that Lawson surfaced. While Lawson kept her complaint about Vera’s leadership style, with Bell, it continued and spread to another member. It is not resolved in this novel, so it appears to be a thread that will continue across one or more future novels in this series.

Very few aspects of this novel would discourage its reading. There are no intimate scenes, inappropriate language is very infrequent, and the scenes that include violence are minor. The only issue is the regular use of British slang words. Even though I have read many British police procedures, I have some exposure to this slang. I had to use the built-in Internet access to understand their meaning. Lastly, this is the eleventh novel. I have read only three previous novels and two short stories. I did not notice references to events from previous novels that were not adequately explained. This novel can be the first Stanhope novel to read.

As I wrote above, there is an aspect that did not enhance my reading enjoyment. Two detectives complain that Vera is not entirely transparent about what she is doing. This also includes the reader at times. This novel and the three previous Vera novels are the only ones I have read, and I did not notice this aspect before. As I mentioned above, this is a very meaty story, which is an aspect that I enjoy in police procedurals. I do recommend reading this novel. I strongly recommend reading this novel. Based on reading the last four Vera novels, three Two Rivers novels, and three short stories, Ann Cleeves has earned being one of my Must-Read authors. I am definitely looking forward to reading her next novel. As I thoroughly enjoyed reading this novel, I rate it with five stars.

I received this novel's free prepublication e-book version through NetGalley from Minotaur Books. My review is based solely on my own reading experience of this book. Thank you, Minotaur Books, for the opportunity to read and review this novel early.

"The Dark Wives" is a gripping thriller that unfolds within the eerie confines of a children's home, where a murder has occurred, and one of the residents has mysteriously vanished. As time runs out, a dedicated team of detectives must work together to unmask the killer and prevent further disappearances—or worse, more deaths. Ann Cleeves masterfully weaves this suspenseful tale, which can be enjoyed as a standalone novel or as part of the larger Vera Stanhope series. Crime drama and thriller enthusiasts will discover a new must-read within these pages.

The Dark Wives

I read Ann Cleeves’ THE DARK WIVES deliberately slowly, so savor the writing and to give myself a chance to solve the mystery (not successfully). I did NOT see those twists coming my way, and was blown away and awed by Vera’s success. Two murders and a missing young girl, scared and in danger, and a new member of the team, to whom Vera is determined to give a chance to succeed. (That’s not a spoiler, all problems introduced early on). Add to it the atmosphere, remote coastal setting, standing stones with a somber legend, troubled youths, contrast to those with more comforts and opportunities. The more I get to know Vera, the more I like her. I haven’t read all the earlier books (don’t worry, it still makes perfect sense without that background), but after reading this, I’m motivated to do so.

This is the eleventh Vera Stanhope novel , but my very first one. I’ve read Ann Cleeves’ other series and enjoyed it, but this was my first exposure to Vera. I found the book easy to follow even though I didn’t know everyone’s backstory. The mystery was engrossing and kept me guessing until the end. I enjoyed the description of the area also. Thanks to Minotaur Books and NetGalley for an early eARC of the book so that I could leave an honest review.

This is the eleventh book in Cleeves' now classic Vera Stanhope series, and as always, the books are a slow burn with a smasher of an ending. This book begins with an extremely compelling set up: Vera is called to a local care home where one of the workers has been found murdered and one of the residents, a 14 year old girl, has vanished. Vera and her team aren't sure whether she's a suspect or a victim, but she's 14 and missing, so the hunt is on to locate her. Vera is under a bit of a cloud - at the end of the last book (The Rising Tide) she'd lost one of her team, Holly. She's hired a replacement for the strait-laced, disciplined Holly that's as different as she can be. Rosie Bell is brash and likes a drink with the girls after work, but she proves to have some unexpected qualities as the investigation proceeds.

With a new person on the team, all of whom miss Holly, there are some adjustments to be made, though Joe is as sturdy as always, and Charlie as good at following a paper trail in the background. Vera is such an interesting character and it's one of the things that makes this series so great. She's practical, but she's also empathic. She acts like the investigation must proceed at all costs, yet she sees and understands the human pain behind the crimes she's investigating. All through the book, Vera is unable to think of 14-year-old Chloe as a murderer, even if the evidence against her looks bleak and her team are sure she's involved. However, Vera holds the team, and the book, together. The assembling of clues is meticulous and leads the detectives on some interesting tangents.

Rosie manages to prove her worth straight away as she deals with the death notification - the dead care worker’s parents are stunned with grief and despair, and she turns out to have a light and sensitive touch. While Vera warns her she's not a social worker but a cop, she also wants to use this particular skill of Rosie's, and she indeed is able to earn the trust of the dead man's parents. The grim nature of the care home, one for difficult adolescents, seems exemplified by dismal shades of grey, inside and out. Chloe, the missing girl, has an absent father and had been caring for a mentally ill mother. She wouldn't live with her grandparents and so ended up in the home. The other residents have even harder lives in many ways and Chloe is somewhat of a loner, spending her time writing in her journal.

The other residents are more typically troubled. While Cleeves doesn't delve into their lives quite as deeply as she does Chloe's, she certainly paints a skilful picture of the bleakness of the home, which is run by a private company and seems to Vera to be coldly institutional rather than a "home" of any kind. As often is the case in a Cleeves novel, there are many threads and a seemingly unsolvable puzzle which sizzles and sparks as the book draws to a close.

Cleeves never neglects the natural side of things and the Dark Wives of the title are a Stonehenge like rock formation, with the folklore being that they were three crones told to keep quiet. They loom over the tiny nearby town, and the town in turn celebrates a witch night a few weeks after Halloween where the local kids dress up and go out on the moor to find the witch. It's a huge local celebration, and the culmination of the book's events. This was an atmospheric and emotional read, though I wished for more metaphorical flesh on Chloe. I wanted to know a bit more about her and despite a spectacular conclusion I was slightly disappointed. I almost felt this was a transitional title, as Vera adjusts to the loss of Holly and attempts to reboot her investigative team with the addition of Rosie. I'll be interested to see what happens next.

"As New York Times bestseller Ann Cleeves's beloved Vera series explodes in popularity in print and on TV, this stunning eleventh book explores the web of secrets surrounding a young man's death.

The man's body is found in the early morning light by a local dog walker in the park outside Rosebank, a home for troubled teens in the coastal village of Longwater. The victim is Josh, a staff member, who was due to work the previous night but never showed up.

DI Vera Stanhope is called out to investigate the death, with her only clue being the disappearance of one of the home's residents, fourteen-year-old Chloe Spence. Vera can't bring herself to believe that a teenager is responsible for the murder, but even she can't dismiss the possibility.

Vera, Joe and new team member Rosie Bell, are soon embroiled in the case, and when a second connected body is found near the Three Dark Wives monument in the wilds of the Northumberland countryside, superstition and folklore begin to collide with fact. Vera knows she has to find Chloe to get to the truth, and the dark secrets in their community that may be far more dangerous than she could have ever believed possible."

Now that the show is ending, might I persuade you into reading the books? Come join us, there's folklore colliding with fact! Which is my catnip.

This is the eleventh book in the Vera Stanhope series. Each mystery is stand alone; however, the recurring characters’ relationships and backgrounds are explored over the course of the series. The books are told in third person and follow multiple characters including Detective Inspector Vera Stanhope and her team. This is one of my favorite mystery series, and Vera is by far my favorite female detective, both eccentric and savvy.

This mystery finds Vera and her crew investigating the death of Josh, a staff member at a home for troubled teens. There’s also a missing fourteen-year-old from the home that Vera suspects may have witnessed the murder and hopes did not commit it. There’s a plethora of domestic issues between the family of the murder victim, the family of the missing girl and several others involved. At one point, I had to start making notes to keep all the characters straight. Per usual with these mysteries, Vera pieces it all together while I was still floundering.

In addition to the case, the team is adjusting to a new member in Rosie. Vera is rather disconcerted about how to treat the new team member given her mixed feelings and guilt over Holly, sometimes overcompensating, while Joe is clearly disgruntled by the tension in Vera’s treatment of the newcomer. There’s also a birdwatcher involved in the case with a connection to Vera’s father Hector.

Recommended to mystery enthusiasts.

Thank you to Netgalley and Minotaur Books for a copy provided for an honest review.

In this eleventh book in the Vera Stanhope series, Ann Cleeves again populates the story with great characters in believable situations set in a complex plot that kept me turning pages.

New employee Josh Woodburn's body is found outside of a home for hard-to-place teens, and one of the charges, fourteen-year-old Chloe Spence, is missing. Vera and her team, including new member Rosie Bell, have been called to investigate. Their first question: did Chloe run away because she is the killer or because she is in fear of her life as well? As the team delves into the murder, the motive is as elusive as Chloe's whereabouts. When another body is found in a remote village near three standing stones known as the Three Dark Wives, Vera connects the dots to both Chloe and the group home and steps up her efforts to find the killer.

This series is my favorite of the three mystery series Cleeves has penned. I enjoyed the Shetland Island series, and her Two Rivers series gets better and better, but Vera is such a unique character that she's hard to beat. How Cleeves comes up with such intriguing plots is impressive to me. This book can be read as a standalone, but why deprive yourself of the ten other Vera novels? 4.5/5 stars.

Thank you, NetGalley and Minotaur Books, for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own. The publication date is August 27, 2024.

The Dark Wives by Ann Cleeves is the 11th in the riveting Vera Stanhope series. DI Vera is called to investigate the murder of a young man, Josh, in atmospheric Northumberland where folklore is part of the cultural tapestry. Josh had connections to a home for troubled teens, as does Chloe who has gone missing. Vera feels Chloe is the key to the mystery and finding her will unravel the layers. But is she even alive? A second body turns up, intensifying the tension and suspense.

Detective Rosie is thrown into the thick of things on her first day at her new job. She is vastly different from Vera but the two are complementary, ultimately making a great team. I appreciate their humanness and individual interviewing and deducting techniques as they encounter the Dark Wives.

The setting is what appeals to me most about this particular installment. I adore Northumberland and Cleeves whisked me away instantly. She also deftly and sensitively writes about mental health issues, especially in teens. Her dark story bits are just unsettling enough without being horrifying or gory and her writing is gorgeously rich.

My sincere thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for providing me with an early digital copy of this engrossing novel.

Vera, Joe and Rosie are searching for Josh, a staff member of a residents home. They need to find a 14 year old Chloe Spence to get to the truth. The book moves at a steady pace with multiple POV's from the team members. As usual, Ann Cleeves keeps the story close to her chest so it's hard to figure out what is going on until the very end of the book. If you like books that are hard to figure out, then you will love this book. I look forward to the next book in the series but I do highly recommend reading this book.

The Dark Wives is the 11th Vera Stanhope procedural mystery by Ann Cleeves. Due out 27th Aug 2024 from Macmillan on their Minotaur imprint, it's 384 pages and available in hardcover, audio, and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout.

This is a consistently top-shelf mystery series from a prolific, very gifted author. Ann Cleeves is one of a scant handful; she has very few peers. The characters have made the jump to TV as well; Brenda Blethyn has made such an indelible stamp on the character that readers "see" her whilst reading, much like Suchet really *became* Poirot to a generation of viewers. Happily, high expectations aren't unreasonable in this case and this is a very strong book in a wonderfully strong series (long may it continue).

The development and real (sometimes shocking) changes for the characters of Vera and the people on her team feel natural and organic. They feel like real three dimensional believable people. From the first book (The Crow Trap), Vera and crew were well fleshed out and believable, and the plots have been solid and tightly written and plotted. This book is so meticulously well crafted - clearly the author continues to go from strength to strength.

In this installment, Vera and her team turn their investigative powers to solving the bludgeoning death of an idealistic young care home worker, and the disappearance of a young girl who was housed at the care home when the murder took place.

The unabridged audiobook has a run time of 11 hours 48 minutes and is excellently read by series narrator Janine Birkett. She has a well modulated classically trained mezzo/light alto voice with a very convincing Geordie accent (native?), and an impressive facility with a number of other regional accents from cut-glass RP to London. She enunciates remarkably clearly and the dialogue is crisp and understandable even at higher listening speeds. The sound and production quality are high throughout the read.

Five stars for both audio and print. Beautifully written and completely compelling. The scenery is bleak and breathtaking and lends so much atmosphere to the book. The denouement and resolution were breathless and dramatic (and satisfying, if melancholy, a hallmark of this series).

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

eBook ARC - 5 Stars

When I decided to dive into Ann Cleeves' books [first Shetland, then Vera, and now Two Rivers], I never truly anticipated liking, much less loving each one [as I was new to English mysteries, first finding the TV shows online and then gravitating to the books when I can], yet here we are, on book eleven, and I am praying they never end [all while grieving the upcoming final season of Vera with the stupendous Brenda Blethyn as our Vera], even though I know that that day will come. Until then, I will read and anything Ms. Cleeves gives us.

Book 10 was heartbreaking. I cried in disbelief and struggled with that ending for awhile. But more books called [and were read], and sad endings go to the back of our minds and all is well.
Enter book 11 and the reader is reminded again of book 10 and its end and I'll admit that I sniffled a bit at that forgotten memory, and I am not going to lie, in not loving the new team member [maybe she will grow on me?], made me sad all over again.

This was a crazy, twisty, mystery that had me guessing throughout the whole book [ALL while being annoyed at Joe and the damn whining he was doing - dude, this isn't your first go 'round with Vera, you know the score FFS], and by the reveal, I was completely shocked and deeply sad all over again, as there was just so little happy at the end of this one.

This was just a fantastic read and I am always so glad when I get to go and visit Northumberland and my "friends" there.

Audiobook ARC - 4 Stars

As always, Janine Birkett does a really good job narrating the newest Vera book - SO. MANY. CHARACTERS! I am in awe of how she keeps them [and their voices] all in her head and manages to keep them all straight in the story. Amazing. Well done.

Thank you to NetGalley, Ann Cleeves, Janine Birkett - Narrator, St. Martin's Press/Minotaur Books and Macmillian Audio for providing the eBook and audiobook ARC's in exchange for an honest review.

The series novels of Ann Cleeves, be they the ones featuring DI Jimmy Perez, the ones featuring DI Vera Stanhope, or those featuring Detective Matthew Venn, all have something in common that is extremely important to the veteran mystery reader. Readers know that the mystery to be solved by any of these fictional detectives is going to be every bit as intriguing as it is complicated - and readers who figure any of them out before Cleeves makes her big reveal near the end of each novel are to be congratulated. The Dark Wives, book number eleven in Cleeves's Vera Stanhope series, is most certainly no exception to the rule.

It all starts when the body of a young volunteer at a home for troubled teens is found dead outside the building early one morning. When Vera Stanhope arrives on the scene she also learns that a fourteen-year-old resident of the home has not been seen since the previous evening. While others, including Vera's favorite Detective Sergeant, Joe Ashworth, instinctively see the missing girl as suspect number one, Vera is not so sure. Her gut tells her that the young girl is more likely to be victim than villain. Whether the investigation proves her right or not remains to be seen.

So here we have the makings of another solid Vera Stanhope novel. However, what really makes an Ann Cleeves novel so good these days is the special care that Cleeves uses each time out to further develop the emotional evolution of her recurring series characters. As The Dark Wives opens, Vera is still struggling to cope with the loss of of a female officer whose death she blames herself for. But even now, despite being determined to be more open with her staff - and less rash about placing herself in harm's way without backup - Vera keeps falling back on her old habits.

Joe Ashworth, personally closer to Vera than anyone else in the department, can't help but notice and worry about Vera's struggles, so when the flashy new investigator Rosie Bell shows up to begin her first day on the team, Joe is not quite sure what to expect. Rosie is very different from her predecessor, so different, in fact, that Joe begins to feel a little threatened by her presence after Vera starts to show her what Joe can't help but feel is special treatment at his own expense.

As one thread after another is yanked on by the investigators, shocking as the results often are, it all starts to make perfect sense to Vera. But even when she is almost certain that she knows the identity of those behind everything that went wrong at the teen refuge, Vera still has to prove it. So has she learned to share her theories with the rest of the team yet...or will she make the same mistakes she made last time?

I jumped into Vera Stanhope's world with this book for the first time, and I was able to follow without having read the other books, but I feel like the reading experience is always enhanced when you read a series in order. After reading this book, I will be going back and adding the others to my TBR list. Vera and her team, including officers Joe and Rosie, are great characters. I love how Vera tells it as it is. The mystery of this story centers around Rosebank, a home for troubled teens and the death of one of their staff members Josh. The setting is intriguing and presents many possible suspects making for interesting plotting. Fans of police procedurals like Kathy Reichs' Temperance Brennan series will enjoy this one.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this eARC.

Ann Cleeves’ The Dark Wives is the 11th installment in the beloved Vera Stanhope series, and it does not disappoint. This novel is a masterful blend of mystery, folklore, and the intricate dynamics of a small community, showcasing Cleeves’ talent for crafting compelling and atmospheric crime fiction.

The story begins with the discovery of a young man’s body in the early morning light by a dog walker in the park outside Rosebank, a home for troubled teens in the coastal village of Longwater. The victim, Josh, was a staff member who was supposed to work the previous night but never showed up. DI Vera Stanhope is called to investigate, with her only clue being the disappearance of fourteen-year-old Chloe Spence, a resident of the home. As Vera delves deeper into the case, she uncovers a web of secrets and lies that lead her to the Three Dark Wives monument in the Northumberland countryside.

Cleeves excels in character development, and The Dark Wives is no exception. Vera Stanhope remains a formidable and endearing protagonist, her sharp intellect and unyielding determination driving the investigation forward. The introduction of new team member Rosie Bell adds fresh dynamics to the team, while the enigmatic Chloe Spence and the troubled teens at Rosebank provide a rich tapestry of characters that keep readers engaged. Each character is meticulously crafted, with their own secrets and motivations that add depth to the story.

Cleeves’ writing is atmospheric and evocative, capturing the bleak beauty of the Northumberland landscape and the eerie ambiance of the Three Dark Wives monument. Her prose is both descriptive and precise, creating a vivid sense of place that immerses readers in the story. The pacing is expertly managed, with tension building steadily as Vera uncovers the layers of the mystery.

The Dark Wives explores themes of trust, betrayal, and the impact of the past on the present. It delves into the complexities of human relationships and the ways in which secrets can fester and destroy. The novel touches on the power of folklore and superstition, and how they can influence and shape a community’s collective psyche.

Ann Cleeves has once again delivered a gripping and atmospheric mystery with The Dark Wives. The novel is a testament to her skill in blending intricate plotting with rich character development and evocative settings.

Whether you’re a long-time fan of Vera Stanhope or new to the series, this book is sure to captivate and intrigue you. It’s a must-read for anyone who appreciates well-crafted crime fiction with a touch of the supernatural.