Date: 26 June 2022
Location: Jay & Gina
The Bookers once again had an in-person meeting, this time time at Jay & Gina’s. Because of the hot weather, we delayed our meeting start time to 5:00pm. There were 14 of us there to discuss Ann Cleeves detective novel Raven Black, the first in her series of eight novels all set in the Shetland Islands and featuring the detective, Jimmy Perez.
About 10 of us actually read the book, or at least most of it, and everyone seemed to enjoy it. It was a fast read which kept your attention and kept you guessing. Also, several of us had followed the series Shetland which streams on BritBox. The video series is set in the Shetland Islands and based (rather loosely) on the characters from the novels. However, it is a little disconcerting to read the books and then watch the videos. The relationships between the characters are very different, and even the stories with similar crimes often have a different guilty person.
In addition to the Shetland novels, Cleeves also has another popular detective series, this one set in North East England on the border with Scotland. The main protagonist in these books is Vera Stanhope, probably one of the most unique detectives in contemporary fiction. These books are the basis for another popular BritBox series, Vera.
While Cleeves novels may not qualify as great literature, she writes good detective stories with interesting characters — very nice escapist reading.
— Bob