Blue Lightning

by Ann Cleeves

Published 5 February 2010

A remote island on lockdown. A killer on the loose. There is no escape for Inspector Jimmy Perez in Blue Lightning, the fourth Shetland mystery from Ann Cleeves.

Now a major BBC One drama, Shetland, starring Douglas Henshall.


Shetland detective Jimmy Perez knows it will be a difficult homecoming, as he returns to Fair Isle to introduce his fiancée to his parents. With the autumn storms raging, the island is cut off from the rest of the world.

Then a woman’s body is discovered at the renowned bird observatory, with feathers threaded through her hair. Perez has no support from the mainland and must investigate the old-fashioned way – alone. He soon realizes that this is no crime of passion, but a murder of cold and calculated intention.

There will be no way to escape the island until the storms abate. And so the killer is also trapped, just waiting for the opportunity to strike again . . .

Ann Cleeves will be donating her royalties from the sale of this edition of Blue Lightning to support the Fair Isle Bird Observatory.

Continue the thrilling crime series with Dead Water.


Wild Fire

by Ann Cleeves

Published 1 September 2018
Hoping for a fresh start, an English family moves to the remote Shetland islands, eager to give their autistic son a better life. But when a young nanny's body is found hanging in the barn beside their home, rumors of her affair with the husband spread like wildfire. As suspicion and resentment of the family blazes in the community, Detective Inspector Jimmy Perez is called in to investigate. He knows it will mean his boss, Willow Reeves, returning to run the investigation, and confronting their complex relationship. With families fracturing and long-hidden lies emerging, Jimmy faces the most disturbing case of his career.

Cold Earth

by Ann Cleeves

Published 6 October 2016
Cold Earth is the seventh book in Ann Cleeves' Shetland series - a major BBC One drama starring Douglas Henshall.

In the dark days of a Shetland winter, torrential rain triggers a landslide that crosses the main Lerwick-Sumburgh road and sweeps down to the sea.

At the burial of his old friend Magnus Tait, Jimmy Perez watches the flood of mud and peaty water smash through a croft house in its path. Everyone thinks the croft is uninhabited, but in the wreckage he finds the body of a dark-haired woman wearing a red silk dress. In his mind, she shares his Mediterranean ancestry and soon he becomes obsessed with tracing her identity.

Then it emerges that she was already dead before the landslide hit the house. Perez knows he must find out who she was, and how she died.

Also available in the Shetland series are Raven Black, White Nights, Red Bones, Blue Lightning, Dead Water and Thin Air.

White Nights

by Ann Cleeves

Published 4 April 2008
Following on from the award-winning Raven Black, White Nights is the second title in Ann Cleeves' popular Shetland crime series featuring Detective Jimmy Perez.

When Shetland detective Jimmy Perez finds a body in a hut used by fishermen it seems to be a straightforward case of suicide. He recognizes the victim - a stranger with amnesia who had disrupted a local party the night before his death.

Yet this is no desperate act of anguish, but the work of a cold and calculating killer. As Perez investigates, he finds himself mired in the hidden secrets of the small Biddista community. Then another body is found.

Perez knows he must break the cycle before another death occurs. But this is a crazy time of year when night blurs into day and nothing is quite as it seems . . .

Red Bones

by Ann Cleeves

Published 20 February 2009
Red Bones is the third book in Ann Cleeves' Shetland series - filmed as the major BBC1 drama starring Douglas Henshall, Shetland.

When an elderly woman is shot in what appears to be a tragic accident, Shetland detective Jimmy Perez is called to investigate the mystery.

The sparse landscape and the emptiness of the sea have bred a fierce and secretive people. As Jimmy looks to the islanders for answers, he finds instead two feuding families whose envy, greed and bitterness have lasted generations.

Then there's another murder and, as the spring weather shrouds the island in claustrophobic mists, Jimmy must dig up old secrets to stop a new killer from striking again . . .

Also available in the Shetland series are Raven Black, Red Bones, Blue Lightning, Dead Water and Thin Air.

Dead Water

by Ann Cleeves

Published 31 January 2013
Dead Water is the fifth book in Ann Cleeves' Shetland series - which is now the major BBC1 drama starring Douglas Henshall, SHETLAND. When the body of journalist Jerry Markham is found in a traditional Shetland boat, outside the house of the Fiscal, down at the Marina, young Detective Inspector Willow Reeves is drafted in to head up the investigation. Since the death of his fiancee, Inspector Jimmy Perez has been out of the loop, but his interest in this new case is stirred and he decides to help the inquiry. Markham - originally a Shetlander but who had made a name for himself in London - had left the islands years before. In his wake, he left a scandal involving a young girl, Evie Watt, who is now engaged to a seaman. He had few friends in Shetland, so why was he back? Willow and Jimmy are led to Sullum Voe, the heart of Shetland's North Sea oil and gas industry. It soon emerges from their investigation that Markham was chasing a story in his final days. One that must have been significant enough to warrant his death ...Also available in the Shetland series are Raven Black, White Nights, Red Bones and Blue Lightning.
Ann Cleeves' Vera Stanhope series (ITV television drama VERA) contains five titles, of which The Glass Room is the most recent.

Thin Air

by Ann Cleeves

Published 11 September 2014
Thin Air is the sixth book in Ann Cleeves' Shetland series - now a major BBC One drama starring Douglas Henshall as detective Jimmy Perez, Shetland. A group of old university friends leave the bright lights of London and travel to Unst, Shetland's most northerly island, to celebrate the marriage of one of their friends to a Shetlander. But late on the night of the wedding party, one of them, Eleanor, disappears - apparently into thin air. It's mid-summer, a time of light nights and unexpected mists. The following day, Eleanor's friend Polly receives an email. It appears to be a suicide note, saying she'll never be found alive. And then Eleanor's body is discovered, lying in a small loch close to the cliff edge. Detectives Jimmy Perez and Willow Reeves are dispatched to Unst to investigate. Before she went missing, Eleanor claimed to have seen the ghost of a local child who drowned in the 1920s. Her interest in the ghost had seemed unhealthy - obsessive, even - to her friends: an indication of a troubled mind. But Jimmy and Willow are convinced that there is more to Eleanor's death than they first thought. Is there a secret that lies behind the myth?
One so shocking that someone would kill - many years later - to protect? Ann Cleeves' striking Shetland novel explores the tensions between tradition and modernity that lie deep at the heart of a community, and how events from the past can have devastating effects on the present. Also available in the Shetland series are Raven Black, White Nights, Red Bones, Blue Lightning and Dead Water.

Raven Black

by Ann Cleeves

Published 3 February 2006
Raven Black is the first book in Ann Cleeves' Shetland series - which is now the major BBC1 drama starring Douglas Henshall, SHETLAND.It is a cold January morning and Shetland lies buried beneath a deep layer of snow. Trudging home, Fran Hunter's eye is drawn to a vivid splash of colour on the white ground, ravens circling above. It is the strangled body of her teenage neighbour Catherine Ross. As Fran opens her mouth to scream, the ravens continue their deadly dance ...The locals on the quiet island stubbornly focus their gaze on one man - loner and simpleton Magnus Tait. But when police insist on opening out the investigation a veil of suspicion and fear is thrown over the entire community. For the first time in years, Catherine's neighbours nervously lock their doors, whilst a killer lives on in their midst.Also available in the Shetland series are White Nights, Red Bones, Blue Lightning and Dead Water. Ann Cleeves' Vera Stanhope series (ITV television drama VERA) contains five titles, of which The Glass Room is the most recent.