The Dark Wives

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. Sista boken om Vera? Åtminstone den sista som filmatiserades med Brenda Blethyn som Vera.

The Gown

En bok om ett par av kvinnorna (fiktiva) som broderade Drottning, då prinsessan Elizabeths brudklänning. Den var jättebra, kanske inte för sin litterära höjd, men för att den gjorde mig märkligt berörd. Det är något med tyg och handarbete, vet ni.

We Solve Murders

Steve Wheeler is enjoying retired life. He does the odd bit of investigation work, but he prefers his familiar habits and routines: the pub quiz, his favorite bench, his cat waiting for him when he comes home. His days of adventure are over: adrenaline is daughter-in-law Amy’s business now.

Amy Wheeler thinks adrenaline is good for the soul. As a private security officer, she doesn’t stay still long enough for habits or routines. She’s currently on a remote island keeping world-famous author Rosie D’Antonio alive. Which was meant to be an easy job...

Then a dead body, a bag of money, and a killer with their sights on Amy have her sending an SOS to the only person she trusts. A breakneck race around the world begins, but can Amy and Steve stay one step ahead of a lethal enemy? 

 

 

 

The Rising Tide

For fifty years a group of friends have been meeting regularly for reunions on Holy Island, celebrating the school trip where they met, and the friend that they lost to the rising causeway tide five years later. Now, when one of them is found hanged, Vera is called in. Learning that the dead man had recently been fired after misconduct allegations, Vera knows she must discover what the friends are hiding, and whether the events of many years before could have led to murder then, and now . . .

But with the tide rising, secrets long-hidden are finding their way to the surface, and Vera and the team may find themselves in more danger than they could have believed possible . . .

 

 

 

 

 

SPOILER 

På slutet dör en av Veras närmaste poliser, Holly. Väldigt sorgligt och oväntat. Hon blev anfallen och skadad, men jag trodde verkligen inte att hon skulle dö... 

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.

The Last Devil To Die

An old friend in the antiques business has been killed, and a dangerous package he was protecting has gone missing.

As the gang springs into action they encounter art forgers, online fraudsters and drug dealers, as well as heartache close to home.

With the body count rising, the package still missing and trouble firmly on their tail, has their luck finally run out? And who will be the last devil to die?

Som alltid så underhållande och fint skriven. 

The Bullet That Missed

One Thursday afternoon in the seniors' center, a decade-old cold case --their favorite kind-- leads the Thursday Murder Club to a local news legend and a murder with no body and no answers. A new foe they call "Viking", wants Elizabeth to kill former KGB chief Viktor, or he will kill her sweet best friend Joyce. Activist marked for death Ron and psychiatrist Ibrahim chase clues for Viking's identity, and investigate mob-queen prisoner from last book.

This third adventure ranges from a prison cell with espresso machine to a luxury penthouse with swimming pool high in the sky.

The Seagull

A visit to her local prison brings DI Vera Stanhope face to face with an old enemy: former detective superintendent, and now inmate, John Brace. Brace was convicted of corruption and involvement in the death of a gamekeeper - and Vera played a key part in his downfall.

Now, Brace promises Vera information about the disappearance of Robbie Marshall, a notorious wheeler-dealer who disappeared in the mid-nineties, if she will look out for his daughter and grandchildren. He tells her that Marshall is dead, and that his body is buried close to St Mary's Island in Whitley Bay. However, when a search team investigates, officers find not one skeleton, but two.

This cold case case takes Vera back in time, and very close to home, as Brace and Marshall, along with a mysterious stranger known only as 'the Prof', were close friends of Hector, her father. Together, they were the 'Gang of Four', regulars at a glamorous nightclub called The Seagull. Hector had been one of the last people to see Marshall alive. As the past begins to collide dangerously with the present, Vera confronts her prejudices and unwanted memories to dig out the truth . . .

The Seagull is a searing new novel by Sunday Times bestselling author Ann Cleeves, about corruption deep in the heart of a community, and fragile, and fracturing, family relationships.

The Janus Stone

 It’s been only a few months since archaeologist Ruth Galloway found herself entangled in a missing persons case, barely escaping with her life. But when construction workers demolishing a large old house in Norwich uncover the bones of a child beneath a doorway—minus its skull—Ruth is once again called upon to investigate. Is it a Roman-era ritual sacrifice, or is the killer closer at hand?

Ruth and Detective Harry Nelson would like to find out—and fast. When they realize the house was once a children’s home, they track down the Catholic priest who served as its operator. Father Hennessey reports that two children did go missing from the home forty years before—a boy and a girl. They were never found. When carbon dating proves that the child’s bones predate the home and relate to a time when the house was privately owned, Ruth is drawn ever more deeply into the case. But as spring turns into summer it becomes clear that someone is trying very hard to put her off the trail by frightening her, and her unborn child, half to death.

The Crossing Places

Forensic archaeologist Dr. Ruth Galloway is in her late thirties and lives happily alone with her two cats in a bleak, remote area near Norfolk, land that was sacred to its Iron Age inhabitants—not quite earth, not quite sea. But her routine days of digging up bones and other ancient objects are harshly upended when a child’s bones are found on a desolate beach. Detective Chief Inspector Nelson calls Galloway for help, believing they are the remains of Lucy Downey, a little girl who went missing a decade ago and whose abductor continues to taunt him with bizarre letters containing references to ritual sacrifice, Shakespeare, and the Bible. Then a second girl goes missing and Nelson receives a new letter—exactly like the ones about Lucy. Is it the same killer or a copycat murderer, linked in some way to the site near Ruth’s remote home?

 Ny deckarserie för mig och jag tyckte att den var JÄTTEBRA! Sympatiska personer och roliga ordvändningar.

The Moth Catcher

Life seems perfect in Valley Farm, a quiet community in Northumberland. Then a shocking discovery shatters the silence. The owners of a big country house have employed a house-sitter, a young ecologist named Patrick, to look after the place while they're away. But Patrick is found dead by the side of the lane into the valley - a beautiful, lonely place to die.

DI Vera Stanhope arrives on the scene, with her detectives Holly and Joe. When they look round the attic of the big house - where Patrick has a flat - she finds the body of a second man. All the two victims have in common is a fascination with moths - catching these beautiful, rare creatures.

The three couples who live in the Valley Farm development have secrets too: Annie and Sam's daughter is due to be released from prison any day; Nigel watches, silently, every day, from his window. As Vera is drawn into the claustrophobic world of this increasingly strange community, she realizes that there may be deadly secrets trapped here . . .

Liberation

Inspired by the incredible true story of the most decorated servicewoman of the second world war. Nancy Wake was an Australian girl who, aged, 16 ran away from her abusive mother to the other side of the world. Nancy Wake was a wife who, when her husband was snatched by the Gestapo, fought to be trained by SOE and returned to France to take her revenge.

Nancy Wake was a soldier who led a battalion of 7,000 French Resistance fighters who called her Field Marshall. Who had a 5-million Franc bounty on her head. Who killed a Nazi with her bare hands.

Who defeated 22,000 Germans with the loss of only 100 men. Who sold her medals because, "I'll probably go to hell and they'd melt anyway."Discover the roots of her legend in a thriller about one woman's incredible quest to turn the tide of the war, save the man she loves and take revenge on those who have wronged her.

 Så spännande och hade varit otroligt orealistisk och överdriven om den inte var baserat på en sann historia...

Harbour Street

 In Newcastle, Detective Joe Ashworth and his daughter Jessie travel home on the busy Metro. The train is stopped unexpectedly, and Jessie sees that one woman doesn't leave with the other passengers: Margaret Krukowski has been fatally stabbed.  No one saw the murder take place. How can this be, when the train was packed? Searching for a lead, DI Vera Stanhope heads to the quiet Northumberland town of Mardle to investigate. She can feel in her bones that the local residents know more than they are letting on: a killer is among them.  Just days later, a second woman is murdered. Retracing the victims' final steps, Vera finds herself searching deep into the hidden past of this seemingly innocent neighbourhood, led by clues that keep revolving around one street:

The Glass Room

 

DI Vera Stanhope is not one to make friends easily, but her hippy neighbours keep her well-supplied in homebrew and conversation. But when one of them goes missing, her path leads her to more than a missing friend . . .

Vera tracks the young woman down to the Writer's House, a country retreat where aspiring authors work on their stories. Things get complicated when a body is discovered and Vera's neighbour is found with a knife in her hand.

Calling in the team, Vera knows that she should hand the case over. She's too close to the main suspect. But the investigation is too tempting and she's never been one to follow the rules.

There seems to be no motive. When another body is found, Vera suspects that someone is playing games with her. Somewhere there is a killer who has taken murder off the page and is making it real . . .

Berätta aldrig det här

 Det är mors dag och Frida har glömt att skicka blommor till sin mamma Rosita. När hon även missar moderns telefonsamtal har hon ingen aning om att katastrofen är ett faktum. Dagen efter kommer beskedet att Rosita har hittats död. Men det är när Frida upptäcker hennes sista hälsning som världen fullkomligt rämnar. 

Frida
Nu fick du som du ville!
Jag vill inte ha någon dödsannons.
Jag behöver ingen begravning.
Någon gravsten behöver jag inte heller.
Hoppas ni blir nöjda nu.
Mamma

Och på köksbordet ett besked om uppsagd livförsäkring. 

The Man Who Dies Twice

It's the following Thursday. Elizabeth has received a letter from an old colleague, a man with whom she has a long history. He's made a big mistake, and he needs her help.

His story involves stolen diamonds, a violent mobster, and a very real threat to his life. As bodies start piling up, Elizabeth enlists Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron in the hunt for a ruthless murderer. And if they find the diamonds too? Well, wouldn't that be a bonus? But this time they are up against an enemy who wouldn't bat an eyelid at knocking off four septuagenarians.

Can The Thursday Murder Club find the killer (and the diamonds) before the killer finds them?

Silent Voices

When DI Vera Stanhope finds the body of a woman in the sauna room of her local gym, she wonders briefly if, for once in her life, she's uncovered a simple death from natural causes. But a closer inspection reveals ligature marks around the victim's throat - death is never that simple.

Doing what she does best, Vera pulls her team together and sets them interviewing staff and those connected to the victim, while she and colleague, Sergeant Joe Ashworth, work to find a motive. While Joe struggles to reconcile his home life with the demands made on him by the job, Vera revels being back in charge of an investigation again. Death has never made her feel so alive.

And when they discover that the victim had worked in social services, and had been involved in a shocking case involving a young child, then it appears obvious that the two are somehow connected. Though things are never as they seem...

the Last Train to London

Bättre än jättebra! Det tog ett tag att komma in i boken och i början tänkte jag till och med kanske sluta läsa. "Jag ger den ett tag till", tänkte jag, och sen var jag snart fast. Boken är skriven i mycket korta kapitel och historien byggs upp av många talande detaljer, som till exempel att Eichmann låter sin personal bli blöt i ösregnet för att kunna hålla hans hund torr under ett paraply. Eller att han på en bjudning, för att fira att de blivit av med 600 judiska barn, alltså bland sina bundsförvanter, låter de andra vänta på sin tårta tills han har ätit sin och hållit tal. Den tog lång tid att läsa, för ofta läste jag bara ett par kapitel och kände att det räckte. Ett enormt extra plus för de sista kapitlen där författaren redovisar vilken fakta romanen grundar sig i och vilka (små) förändringar hon gjort i historien.

 In 1936, the Nazi are little more than loud, brutish bores to fifteen-year old Stephan Neuman, the son of a wealthy and influential Jewish family and budding playwright whose playground extends from Vienna’s streets to its intricate underground tunnels. Stephan’s best friend and companion is the brilliant Žofie-Helene, a Christian girl whose mother edits a progressive, anti-Nazi newspaper. But the two adolescents’ carefree innocence is shattered when the Nazis’ take control.

There is hope in the darkness, though. Truus Wijsmuller, a member of the Dutch resistance, risks her life smuggling Jewish children out of Nazi Germany to the nations that will take them. It is a mission that becomes even more dangerous after the Anschluss—Hitler’s annexation of Austria—as, across Europe, countries close their borders to the growing number of refugees desperate to escape.

Tante Truus, as she is known, is determined to save as many children as she can. After Britain passes a measure to take in at-risk child refugees from the German Reich, she dares to approach Adolf Eichmann, the man who would later help devise the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question,” in a race against time to bring children like Stephan, his young brother Walter, and Žofie-Helene on a perilous journey to an uncertain future abroad.

Hidden Depths

Jag älskar sista stycket:

Vera watched him walk to his car, the champagne in one hand, the flowers in the other. Thought that if she´d been married to someone like Joe Ashworth, she´d be so bored she´d commit murder herself.

A hot summer on the Northumberland coast, and Julie Armstrong arrives home from a night out to find her son murdered. Luke has been strangled, laid out in a bath of water and covered with wild flowers.

This stylized murder scene has Inspector Vera Stanhope and her team intrigued. But then a second body - that of beautiful young teacher Lily Marsh - is discovered laid out in a rock pool, the water strewn with flowers. Now, Vera must work quickly to find this dramatist, this killer who is making art out of death.

Clues are slow to emerge from those who had known Luke and Lily, but Vera soon finds herself drawn towards the curious group of friends who discovered Lily's body. What unites these four men and one woman? Are they really the close-knit, trustworthy unit they claim to be? As local residents are forced to share their private lives and those of their loved ones, sinister secrets are slowly unearthed.

And all the while the killer remains in their midst, waiting for an opportunity to prepare another beautiful, watery grave ...

Tyska huset

Frankfurt, 1963. Den unga översättaren Eva Bruhns blir inkallad som tolk under Auschwitzrättegångarna. Medan Eva lyssnar till de fasansfulla vittnesmålen hopar sig frågetecknen i hennes egen historia. Varför vägrar hennes föräldrar och storasyster att prata om sitt liv under kriget? Hon börjar komma ihåg minnen från Auschwitz där hennes far var mässkock. Varför blir så många barn sjuka på spädbarnsavdelningen där hennes syster är sjuksköterska?