Ann Cleeves Classic Crime - engaging mysteries to savour, beloved characters to meet again

A Day in the Death of Dorothea Cassidy is the third novel in the Inspector Ramsay series by Ann Cleeves, author of the Shetland and Vera Stanhope crime series.

For Dorothea Cassidy Thursdays were special. Every week she would look forward to the one day she could call her own, a welcome respite from the routine duties that being a vicar's wife entailed. But one Thursday in June was to be more special than any other. It was the day that Dorothea Cassidy was strangled.

As the small town of Otterbridge prepares for its summer carnival, Inspector Stephen Ramsay begins a painstaking reconstruction of Dorothea's last hours. He soon discovers that she had taken on a number of deserving cases – a sick and lonely old woman, a disturbed adolescent, a compulsive gambler, a single mother with a violent boyfriend and a child in care – and even her close family have their secrets to hide. All these people are haunted, in one way or another, by Dorothea's goodness. But which of them could have possibly wanted her dead?

It is not until a second body is discovered that Ramsay starts to understand how Dorothea lived – and why she died. With the carnival festivities in full swing and dusk falling in Otterbridge, Ramsay's murder investigation reaches its chilling climax . . .

'Nobody does unsettling undercurrents better than Ann Cleeves' – Val McDermid, author of The Mermaids Singing


Another Man's Poison

by Ann Cleeves

Published 25 September 1992
Ever since the death of her husband, Ursula Ottway has lived alone in Back Rigg Cottage, high up on the fells overlooking the beautiful Crow Water reservoir. She has always been popular in the local community, but Ursula's life is far from secure. Her landlord, the ambitious politician Marcus Grenville, wants his property back, as the cottage would provide a perfect holiday residence for the tourists who come up to shoot on the estate. After months of petty harassment, Ursula discovers that the illegal use of poisoned bait on Grenville's land has killed not only a rare bird of prey but her two beloved cats. And she realises that she can bear no more. Outraged by this act of cruelty, Ursula storms up to the Grenvilles' house and -- to the amazement and horror of the guests gathered for dinner -- she denounces Marcus Grenville and threatens revenge. It would hardly look good, after all, for a future government minister to be caught flouting the law on his own land. But when her niece, Molly Palmer-Jones, arrives at Ursula's house the next morning, it is to find her body slumped lifeless on a sofa.
Shocked and saddened, Molly and her husband George decide to piece together a picture of Ursula's last days. And it soon becomes clear that, for many people on the estate, hers was a very convenient death. The Palmer-Joneses embark on a murder investigation ...but even their professional expertise doesn't prepare them for what is to follow. Because a lifetime's worth of secrets must surface before a killer can finally be brought to justice ...

A Lesson in Dying

by Ann Cleeves

Published 22 February 1990
A murder mystery begins in a Northumberland village when the local headmaster is killed. As he was hated by one and all, the village is forced to look among its own for the murderer. Before the truth emerges from Superintendent Ramsay's investigation however, another murder is committed.

Killjoy

by Ann Cleeves

Published 25 June 1993

Killjoy is the fourth mystery novel in the Inspector Ramsay series by Ann Cleeves, author of the Shetland and Vera Stanhope crime series.

The youth theatre cast are in their places but Gus Lynch's female lead is missing, that is, until she's found in the boot of his car . . .

Detective Inspector Stephen Ramsay and Sergeant Gordon Hunter are assigned to head the murder enquiry, meanwhile violence is escalating on the Starling Farm Estate as police battle to contain the latest outbreak of joyriding. Is the death of Gabriella connected to the events at Starling Farm?

When another death occurs, investigations suggest a possible link, and Ramsay realizes what could have provoked someone to kill . . . and kill again.


Murder in My Back Yard

by Ann Cleeves

Published 14 February 1991

Sea Fever

by Ann Cleeves

Published 31 August 1991

Sea Fever is the sixth mystery novel featuring George and Molly Palmer-Jones by Ann Cleeves, author of the Shetland and Vera Stanhope crime series.

A rare and unrecorded sea bird captures all the birders attention whilst right under their noses the most fanatical birder of them all disappears . . .

Later, Greg Franks' corpse, the head bludgeoned, is found floating in the sea. Had it not been for Greg Franks, amateur detective George Palmer-Jones would not have been on the bird watching trip in Cornwall to the first place. He had been hired by Greg Franks' anxious parents to try and persuade their errant son to return home. George would have turned the case down flat but the offer of a free weekend's bird watching was too tempting to resist. Now, he must unhappily shoulder the burden of finding why the young man had been murdered.

Who hated Franks enough to kill him? Almost everyone, it seems . . .


The Baby-Snatcher

by Ann Cleeves

Published 23 May 1997

The Baby-Snatcher is the sixth and final mystery novel in the Inspector Ramsay series by Ann Cleeves, author of the Shetland and Vera Stanhope crime series.

Marilyn Howe’s and her mother Kathleen are an inseparable duo, until one night Kathleen doesn’t come home . . .

Fifteen year old Marilyn turns up alone and frightened on Inspector Ramsay’s doorstep so he takes the young girl home to the isolated coastal community known as the Headland. And in the Howes’ dark and cluttered kitchen they find Kathleen safe and apparently well, though acting rather mysteriously. Six months later, Ramsay has more or less forgotten the strange incident, busy as he is on the trail of a local child abductor. Until he receives news that Mrs Howe has disappeared once more. And for the second time he is drawn into the strange relationships of the families living on the lonely Headland.

Then a woman’s body is washed up on the beach . . .


The Healers

by Ann Cleeves

Published 19 May 1995

Ann Cleeves Classic Crime - engaging mysteries to savour, beloved characters to meet again

The Healers is the fifth mystery novel in the Inspector Ramsay series by Ann Cleeves, author of the Shetland and Vera Stanhope crime series.

Isolated farmer Ernie Bowles was found lying on his kitchen floor, gruesomely strangled . . .

News of the murder came to Inspector Stephen Ramsay early on Monday morning and he fears this case will not be simple. In his experience, most murders are straightforward: an explosion of family pressure, the loss of control in a fight. But Bowles seems to have kept himself to himself and had lived alone since his mother’s death. A seemingly unconnected women is then found strangled too, surely two such killings in the same locality are more than just chilling coincidence?

When Ramsay hears of a third suspicious death, a very tenuous link between the victims takes on a new importance, for all were connected in some way to the Alternative Therapy Centre in Mittingford. Could one of the healers be a killer?


The Mill on the Shore

by Ann Cleeves

Published 25 May 1994

The Mill on the Shore is the seventh mystery novel featuring George and Molly Palmer-Jones by Ann Cleeves, author of the Shetland and Vera Stanhope crime series.

Meg Morrissey refuses to believe that her husband James committed suicide.

James was in high spirits because he’d finally completed his long awaited autobiography. He didn’t leave a suicide note. But even more suspiciously the record of his life’s environmental achievement, his magnum opus, has gone missing. Troubled, Meg calls in amateur sleuths George and Molly Palmer-Jones to investigate. They soon uncover that life in the Morrissey family is not as idyllic as it seems – relations with ex-wife Cathy are not as friendly as Meg makes out and James appears to have fallen for another women. But the disappearance of his autobiography is most puzzling of all, did he uncover a secret so damaging someone was prepared to kill for it?

George and Molly must try to fit together the missing pieces of information to reveal who could have wanted James dead . . .