The Long Call is the captivating first novel in a brand new series from Sunday Times bestseller and creator of Vera and Shetland, Ann Cleeves.
In North Devon, where the rivers Taw and Torridge converge and run into the sea, Detective Matthew Venn stands outside the church as his father's funeral takes place. The day Matthew turned his back on the strict evangelical community in which he grew up, he lost his family too.
Now he's back, not just to mourn his father at a distance, but to take charge of his first major case in the Two Rivers region; a complex place not quite as idyllic as tourists suppose.
A body has been found on the beach near to Matthew's new home: a man with the tattoo of an albatross on his neck, stabbed to death.
Finding the killer is Venn's only focus, and his team's investigation will take him straight back into the community he left behind, and the deadly secrets that lurk there.
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[THE DAY THEY FOUND THE BODY on the shore, Matthew Venn was already haunted by thoughts of death and dying]***
(@panmacmillan, 5 September 2019, 384 pages, e-book, borrowed from @GlasgowLib via @OverDriveLibs)
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I've become quite a fan of the author in recent months. I loved this, the first book in the Two Rivers series. I had it reserved at the library for six months before I got to read it because it's so popular. I look forward to reading Matthew's next investigation. Matthew is gay and it impressed me that the author included him and his husband, two LGBT characters. You don't often come across that in contemporary crime fiction. Matthew is a good cop but lacks confidence in his own skills and abilities, likely fallout from being raised in a strict fundamentalist religious order. Matthew's investigation into a dead man found on a beach becomes something more sinister as two women with learning disabilities go missing. The case is complicated as everything seems linked to the support centre his husband runs. Is her too close to the case? What's the link between both women and the dead man? How is the centre involved? I loved this book.
