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Good mystery - with an ending I didn't see coming! Set in northern England - describes the countryside well. Good character development. I enjoyed this quick read.

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This is the first book I’ve read in the Vera Stanhope series. It certainly can be read as a standalone, though there may have been more connection to the characters by having read previous books in the series. There is a good amount of British slang used.that pulled me out of the story while I tried to figure out it’s meaning. I found the book to be a bit slow in places but it is well written and did present a good mystery.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

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The Darkest Evening by Ann Cleeves is the ninth installment of her Vera Stanhope series. You don't need to have read the previous books if you find yourself with this one in your hands. Set in Northumbria at Midwinter the setting is as much of the story as the mystery is. Since the publisher hasn't offered a synopsis, I won't ruin it for you in my review. I will just tell you that this is a book that found myself thinking about even when I couldn't be sitting and reading it. Thank you #NetGalley for the opportunity to give my honest review of #TheDarkestEvening.

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Ann Cleeves latest novel in her Vera Stanhope series has an eerie, gothic feel and could almost be a murder mystery from the golden age of crime fiction, featuring a murder on a bitterly cold snowy night on a country estate surrounded by dark woods, where a house party is taking place. Vera Stanhope arrives just before dinner is served, clutching an infant she found in an abandoned car on the road not far from the house. The country estate is one known to Vera, a place where her father grew up before he became the black sheep of the family, and one where his brother's wife and married daughter still live. The whereabouts of the infant's mother, Lorna Falstone, a young woman from the nearby village, is resolved when a local farmer finds her body behind the house.

The murder investigation proceeds at a good pace as Vera and her team of Joe, Holly and Charlie try to find out more about Lorna's past and her life in the village where she lived with baby Thomas. There are several suspects among the dysfunctional families on and around the estate, not least Vera's own estranged family, the Stanhopes and the farming families that lease their farms and it takes a lot of sleuthing and dead ends for Vera to find the killer.

If you enjoy watching the TV series 'Vera', it will be hard not to picture the inimitable Brenda Blethyn marching through the snow in her mac and wellies with her hat pulled down over her face, bossing everyone around in her Northumbrian accent. She is so perfect for the role of the disheveled, middle aged, irascible Vera. I do love Vera's relationship with Joe and Holly, expecting them to drop everything and jump when she says but at the same time caring deeply for them. It was also interesting to learn more of Vera's estranged family and to see Vera make some friendly connections with some of the community. A riveting and engaging thriller, albeit a very cold, wintery one, perfect for a winter fireside read.

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DCI Vera Stanhope is back in action in Ann Cleves’ latest installment of the Northumberland, England police procedural series.

This murder mystery hits close to home for Vera.
“This whole case . . . was about families, about what held them together and what ripped them apart.”

At the heart of this thriller are tenant farmers and entitled gentry, with their motivations and obligations often intersecting in unpredictable ways. Ms. Cleves’ use of Robert Frost poetry is artfully woven into the plot line, creating a satisfying and cohesive framework.

Fans of “Shetland” and “Vera”, books and tv shows, will love this as much as I did!
Thank you to St. Martin's/Minataur Press, Ann Cleeves and Netgalley for the advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

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I just couldn't get going on this book, so I don't know if it got better the farther in you went. I reread the first few chapters because it just didn't grab me.

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The author, creator of the beloved VERA series, is Mistress of the British Mystery now that Agatha is gone.

In her latest adventure, Detective Inspector Vera Stanhope finds a child alone in a car, stuck in the snow in the English countryside.

She thinks the driver went for help, so takes the baby to a nearby manor where her dad grew up. Lights are ablaze with a Christmas party on, but none of the celebrants knows a woman’s body lies outside.

As the storm rages, Vera is trapped with the others, which gives her the chance to uncover the truth AND shocking secrets about her family. Cor blimey, I didn’t see that ending coming!

5 of 5 Stars

Pub Date 08 Sep 2020

Thanks to the author, St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for the review copy. Opinions are mine.

#TheDarkestEvening #NetGalley

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This book will not disappoint lovers of detective mysteries. I have read 3 previous books written by Ann Cleeves, and this one was as excellent in plot, characters, mood, and style of writing.. I will continue to read Ann Cleeves books!

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The meandering, old roads of rural Northumberland, in the dark of a frigid winter’s night, with the season’s first blizzard raging away, as a cantankerous older woman grips the wheel of her ancient Land Rover, determined to make it home rather than giving in and finding a room somewhere.

But, as fate would have it, she misses her turnoff in the whiteout her truck’s headlamps fail to penetrate, and ends up creeping down an unfamiliar road… nearly running into another vehicle, that has partially slid off the slippery, narrow lane. Grumbling, the woman hauls herself out of the Rover and makes her way to other car, where she finds the driver’s door wide open, but no driver in sight. One passenger, however, remains: a toddler, strapped into a baby seat, all alone in the frigid cold and dark.

As put out as she might feel, though, the woman is nonetheless a Detective Inspector, and she isn’t about to let a child freeze to death… or its missing parent go unfound.

So begins Ann Cleeves’ latest entry in the long-running Vera Stanhope series, The Darkest Evening.
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Things get a little more complicated once Vera takes the baby and drives to the nearest house… because the nearest house turns out to be a crumbling mansion that—decades ago—she knew rather well: Brockburn, the once-grand ancestral home where her father grew up, and to which he later—as the black sheep of the family—dragged his only daughter when he wanted to bum money off his elder brother. (Needless to say, there’s no love lost between the remaining Stanhopes at Brockburn—Vera’s haughty, now-widowed aunt and the put-upon daughter, Vera’s cousin—and prickly, plodding Vera, the poor relation.) With a pre-holiday fete underway, the dowdy detective and her little mystery guest are unwanted disruptions to the household, at best.

But that’s only the beginning, once the body of a young woman, brutally murdered, is discovered on the edge of Brockburn land, out in the drifting snow… putting a swift end to all festivities, and to peace in the small, nearby farming community for the foreseeable future. Because, as anyone familiar with Vera knows, once she gets her hooks into a case, she bulls her way through it until she has all of the answers she needs.
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Despite my own familiarity with Vera, from the self-titled TV show, The Darkest Evening was actually my first time encountering her in book form, and it was great fun. (So perfectly does actress Brenda Blethyn embody the character, that I heard her voice in my head every time book-Vera spoke, and pictured her squat, stocky presence tramping around in the village and the woods, throughout.)

Cleeves’ writing is clean and compelling; her descriptions colorful, her characterizations vivid, and her depiction of life in a rural area feels true. Throw in a complicated domestic situation (or three), a foreboding sense of history, and a multi-layered mystery, and you’ve got a nice little escape on your hands.

Mystery fans—and anyone who appreciates a curmudgeonly, clever female detective as a delightfully-atypical protagonist—should definitely find The Darkest Evening a worthy diversion. :)
~GlamKitty


[I received an advance copy of The Darkest Evening for review purposes; the book is set for release 8 September 2020.]

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Thank you Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for the ARC of The Darkest Evening. The comments and review are my honest opinion.
If you are a fan of British police TV you may already be aware of Vera Stanhope an elderly, somewhat frumpy Detective Inspector. If not, then this standalone book by author Ann Cleeves is a good introduction to the series.
DI Stanhope finds an abandoned car with a small child inside during a snow storm. Certain that the driver has gone for help, Vera decides to take the child to the nearest home. What starts out as a mysterious missing person soon turns into murder.
This is a well written, descriptive book with a number of suspects and an unorthodox, brainy protagonist that won’t quit until she solves the crime and brings the killer to justice.

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Ann Cleeves is one of the best mystery authors writing today.  She has three current series including the Vera Stanhope mysteries, those featuring Jimmy Perez on Shetland and last year's novel, The Long Call which featured a new protagonist.  I have read them all and recommend that mystery lovers do so as well.  Truly dedicated readers should note that Ms. Cleeves also has two earlier series of books worth searching out with one featuring birders and the other with Inspector Ramsay.


The Darkest Evening is a Vera Stanhope mystery with all of the trademarks including the irascible Vera herself, her team (especially Joe and Holly), vivid settings, well developed characters and good plotting. Readers will be swept up.


The story takes place partly at a country house that belonged to a branch of Vera's family, and its environs.  Long term readers will enjoy the glimpse of Stanhope family history while new readers will not be unduly hampered even if this is the first Vera book that they read. 


Characters include some of Vera's relatives, including her cousin,Juliet, who longs for a child and her husband Mark; who is in theater; Harriet, Juliet's mother; Dorothy who is a close friend of Juliet, and two murder victims.  There are, in addition, a number of other characters who live in the community and have relationships with the victims.  What are these connections?  Who has killed and why?  Readers will be turning the pages as they wait to see how all of the story's threads come together. I highly recommend The Darkest Evening (readers will learn the context of the title as they make their way in the novel). 

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this book in exchange for an honest review.

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This is my first “Vera” book and it certainly will not be my last. I thoroughly enjoyed this mystery yarn, loved the way it was written from the perspective of Vera’s investigative team. The way the author lets us go along on all of the investigation interviews is so fun. We get to hear all that is being said, let our minds wander and try to get a clue, I sometimes thought I needed a notebook to keep notes.
The story never lags and it was one of those books I had a hard time putting down. This was so well written that it ranks right up there with the best mystery authors and stories. I highly recommend. Twists and turns galore. Well done!!!
I want to thank St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for allowing me the opportunity to read and review this book for my honest unbiased opinion. This is a 5-star review. Highly recommend.

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I was not familiar with the Vera Stanhope detective series nor Ms. Cleeves books. I have to say after reading The Darkest Evening, I am a fan. I will look for her other books. I am not sure if it is best to read the books in order as I felt this was a good stand alone read. If there were nuances missed by not having read the other books first, it did not impact my enjoyment of the book.

What I really enjoyed with this book is that it was well thought out and methodical as I would imagine a real life detective would go about solving a murder. Were there red herrings? Sure, just like there are possible other suspects in solving a crime. I was introduced to an area of the UK I had not visited. I felt the cold both weather wise as well as with some of the characters as well as the warmth of others and importantly the gruff exterior of Detective Vera and her vulnerable interior.

I highly recommend this book for those who enjoy mysteries.

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Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the E-arc copy of #TheDarkestEvening.
Another excellent addition to the Vera Stanhope series. These are great books if you haven't read them before you need to start at the beginning.

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Apparently I'm living under a rock because I'd never read anything by Ann Cleeves and had no idea there's a TV series that features protagonist Vera Stanhope. I can't say I'm sorry though, because now I've got a new author to devour. Cleeves knows her craft and The Darkest Evening is a well done whodunit Agatha Christie style. It's beautifully written, expertly plotted and every character exerted some sort of pull on me. And have I mentioned I didn't figure out the murderer's identity until 91 percent into my Kindle read?

That's a solid five stars as far as I'm concerned.

The ninth installment in the series begins when DCI Stanhope gets lost in a Northumberland snowstorm and comes across a car that has veered off the road. The door's open and there's a baby inside, with no sign of the driver. Which is bad enough. Even worse that the closest house is a crumbling mansion that belongs to her distant relations, the branch of the clan that uses "politeness as a weapon of mass destruction.” It's nearly Christmas and there's a party in full swing. When her cousin Juliet opens the door, she initially takes the disheveled, middle-aged detective for a homeless person. When she recognizes Vera, she's faced with a dilemma. Must she invite this person in?

But Vera has her own issues. Re the Baby, which she has no idea how to handle. “Do you think I could bring it in?” she asks a little desperately.

I was hooked from this point on. Even though I'd never the read the other books, the investigative team comes to life, as do all the other suspects. Ironically, the victim was the most vivid character for me, but everyone has their secrets, their agendas, their longings, disappointments and passions. This is a proper procedural and it slowly but relentlessly builds the suspense. The ending isn't over-the-top and every single loose end is tied up, even one that relates to some avocados.

The English village setting was also lovely, not in the pretty sense of the word, but in a more evocative way. Clearly, Cleeves understands the complicated class and interpersonal dynamics of such a place but she also conveys a sense of its strange, magnetic power. Like the murdered Lorna, who painted the same forest cabin over and over, there's something about the Grimm's fairy-tale setting that doesn't want to let you go. To quote the Robert Frost poem that the title takes its name from - “the woods are lovely, dark and deep...” Cleeves seems to be saying something larger about the things that catch hold of us beyond all reason. Somefimes we can escape them. Sometimes not.

Much thanks to St. Martin's Press and Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

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Thanks to Netgalley for an ARC of this book, in exchange for a fair and honest review.

I had read the first book in this series - liked it, and planned to read more, but just didn't get to it. Then I was lucky enough to get an ARC of this one - but, it was #9. While it was probably not necessary to read 2-8, I decided to go on a Vera Stanhope binge, and read all of them - and now I've finished #9!

I was a little afraid of overdosing, but instead, each book in the series made me eager to go on to the next. While it's not really necessary to read them in order (the plots stand on their own), there is a great deal of character development, with Vera and with the other members of her team. As the books progress, each of the key characters has developed and we've gotten to know them better.

In #8, The Seagull, we started getting into Vera's past, as much of the plot involved her deceased father and his friends. In this book, much of the plot revolves around her father's relatives, with whom she has had little contact, since her father was the black sheep of the family. This adds another dimension to the plot, and especially to Vera's emotional state during the book.

As usual, she manages to put together all the information to arrive at a conclusion as to the murderer. She's a smart detective, and part of the fun is watching people underestimate her because of her appearance.

I enjoyed this very much, and hope Ms. Cleeves doesn't wait so long to write another in this series!

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The Darkest Evening is the ninth installment in the bestselling Vera Stanhope series. Fans of Vera, who is a very unique protagonist, will welcome this novel, as it is not only well-written, but will keep readers on the edges of their seats. There is a major snowstorm, and Vera is driving home; she takes a wrong turn, only to discover a stalled vehicle with the door open and a baby strapped in a car seat. Vera takes the car seat with the baby and puts him in her car. As she drives along, she sees the Stanhope mansion – her father was related and disowned because he was a black sheep – and goes up the drive to call the police. Her cousin, Juliet answers the door, and while Vera is there, a neighbor discovers the body of a young woman who turns out to be the baby’s mother. Vera and her team must solve the murder, and Vera has to deal with relatives that aren’t particularly dear to her and look down on her.

For those not familiar with Vera, she is frumpy, overweight, and not beautiful like most protagonists in novels. She is, however, very clever and an excellent Detective Inspector; she leads a team that respects and likes her. Her team does an excellent job sleuthing, and they work together well.

Cleeves is an award-winning author for a reason; she can tell a story well, and keep readers interested through ups and downs. Her storytelling is done in such a way that suspense builds throughout. One of the charming things about this series is the Scottish influence – i.e., although set in England, much of the idioms are Scottish, such as calling the abandoned child a “bairn.” The setting is in a small English village, and the characters well-developed and are what one would expect.

The Darkest Evening is an excellent novel; and fans will want to read it as soon as it is released. Those who aren’t familiar with Vera can also read this novel, as things are explained well and new readers of the series will get to know Vera. It’s always nice to read something that isn’t same-old, same-old, and this series is quite unique.

Special thanks to NetGalley for supplying a review copy of this book.

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A new Vera Stanhope mystery is always a treat, and The Darkest Evening is especially intriguing because it takes us into the heart of the snooty Stanhope family that rejected Vera's father and the motherless Vera herself. After coming upon an abandoned car in a snowstorm and finding a baby boy inside, Vera cannot get a cell signal to call headquarters and goes in search of a house with a landline. She knows where she is and reluctantly seeks help at the Stanhope estate. A Christmas party is in progress, all the guests snowed in, when Vera arrives. She has no choice but to stay put until the storm eases.

The family has dwindled to Vera's aunt Harriet and her cousin Juliet, and although they still have extensive farmland and tenants, they have little money left. The mansion itself is freezing because it has no heat. Juliet's husband, a stage director and producer, has a plan to turn the estate into an arts center, and the people at the house party are all potential investors.

The party is interrupted when the mother of the abandoned baby is found dead in the snow outside the house. Vera goes into investigative mode. And among the suspects are members of her own family.

As Vera and her team learn more about the beautiful young murder victim and her sad background, they focus on finding out who the baby's father is. Men in Vera's family and men in the village had various close connections with the dead woman and could have fathered the boy. A second murder sheds little light, but Vera's insight and her team's work lead to a killer who has been in plain sight all along.

The mystery is solid, and the look inside Vera's family gives us a new understanding of the detective who has no family or close friends in her life. An excellent addition to the series.

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Another exciting tale in the Vera tradition. I highly recommend. Whether it’s character development, place description, aNd a very developed plot this book is a stand out in the current mystery genre.

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I very much enjoyed reading The Darkest Evening, the latest Vera mystery novel. Having seen the series I heard every word as if spoken by the actors, and it was an absorbing and smooth read, about a murder amongst the local landed gentry. Much like a vintage Agatha Christie, Cleeves had me suspecting everyone in turn, and the ending was satisfying.

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