I found the third book in the Matthew Venn Two Rivers series to be a very good one.

When the well-known adventurer and sailor, Jem Rosco, returns to Greystone, a small village in Devon, he causes quite a stir. A month later, he is found dead in a small dinghy floating in Scully Cove. Matthew is called in to investigate the suspicious death, along with team members Jen Rafferty and Ross May. Matthew feels a little off balance, as Greystone is the community that he grew up in when he was a member of the religious group the Brethren. Some of the villagers treat him with suspicion as he is no longer a true believer.

This book is very atmospheric, as storm after storm hits the small community, and Matthew and his team are unable to leave because of the weather.

Matthew had always been my least favorite of Cleeve's main characters, with Vera and Jimmy Perez being much more interesting, but in this book I felt he was coming into his own more. We get an understanding of some of his motivation, and the complexities of his background.

As is typical, I failed to figure out who was the murderer until Cleeve's revealed it to me, but the ending was a good one. Another great book from one of my favorite Authors.

Thank you NetGalley, St. Martins Press and Minotaur Books for a great installment in the Two Rivers Series.

I love Matthew Venn! He’s my fictional book boyfriend! Seriously, he’s a thinking man’s detective. More of what I’d like to see in my books today. Less CSI, more cerebral. I also like his team a lot. Jen, the single mother and ex-wife of an abusive husband, is the right female addition. And Ross, a young, full of himself, “climber”. Together they congeal into a solid murder solving machine.

A machine with their skills was exactly what was needed to solve, what turned out to be two murders, at Greystone. For a small village, there was no lack of motivation or dearth of suspects. The unusual make up of this small community, paired with the hint of a religious cult, and Venn’s ties to it make for an appealing read. You won’t want to miss this one.

Many thanks to both Minotaur Books and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review an early copy of The Raging Storm, by Ann Cleeves. It is the third book in the Two Rivers series. Expected publication: September 5, 2023.

Greystone is a place Detective Inspector Matthew Venn visited as a child. A community he parted ways with. It's also a place where superstition and rumor mix with fact...

Jem Rosco, a celebrity sailor, and adventurer, returns to the area of his youth, and within a short period of time, his body is discovered in a dinghy by a local lifeboat crew during a raging storm. When another body is found, Venn realizes that no one, including himself, is safe from Scully Cove’s storm of dark secrets.

This is the first book I've read in this series and I found it to be quite atmospheric and interesting. The pace was a bit slower than the books I usually read but that helped me properly follow the intricate plot. I definitely felt as though I had plopped down into the cold rain and howling wind along with the characters!

The only downside for me was that there were quite a few characters, and they were sometimes referred to by just their first names or just their last names. I felt like I had to keep track of twice as many characters.

The ending was one I didn't see coming!!

This author, never fails to disappoint. All of her books are consistently very well written, thank you to NetGalley and the publisher.

After the naked body of a renowned sailor is discovered in a boat anchored off Scully Cove, it’s with great unease that the investigating team of Inspector Venn and his two sergeants Jen Rafferty and Ross May start searching for his killer. Greystone, Devon is a bleak, unappealing little village on the English coast. Wracked by violent storms, and situated by an old quarry most visitors choose to go elsewhere. There’s a deep dive into the denizens of Greystone and their past history because Venn is a detective who likes a lot of background when he’s working a case. The two sergeants don’t get along that great, but both are good at their job. The many threads all come together in the end with the surprising conclusion to the case. Perfectly executed with exactly the right details this is another great addition to Cleeves’s body of work. 4.5 stars

Third in a promising series that continues to add depth to the main detective's character and insight into the county of Devon. In the audio version, Ms. Cleeves adds a personal note on her decision to end her popular Vera Stanhope series and embark on a new one in a new location. As the backstory is essential for understanding of Venn, his history and current personal challenges, this should be read after the previous two, which is not a chore but a delight.

The Raging Storm is the third novel by Anne Cleeves that I've read and the third in the Two Rivers series. I. LOVE. THIS. SERIES.. Like a lot. Anne Cleeves is an excellent writer. The Raging Storm is well plotted and with a strong sense of place. The writing is such that I feel like I am in the small seaside town Greystone, I can feel the wind and salt water on my face.

From Amazon:
Fierce winds, dark secrets, deadly intentions.

When Jem Rosco—sailor, adventurer, and legend—blows into town in the middle of an autumn gale, the residents of Greystone, Devon, are delighted to have a celebrity in their midst. But just as abruptly as he arrived, Rosco disappears again, and soon his lifeless body is discovered in a dinghy, anchored off Scully Cove, a place with legends of its own.

This is an uncomfortable case for Detective Inspector Matthew Venn. Greystone is a place he visited as a child, a community he parted ways with. Superstition and rumor mix with fact as another body is found, and Venn finds his judgment clouded.

As the winds howl, and Venn and his team investigate, he realizes that no one, including himself, is safe from Scully Cove’s storm of dark secrets. (END)

I read a lot of mysteries and thrillers and I am fond of the "cozy" mysteries. The Raging Storm is like adjacent to the cozy mystery genre - small town, big secrets. Interesting cast of characters. Lovely main character. I say that the novel (and the others in the series) is ADJACENT because there's just enough of an edge to the proceedings and the brooding main character Detective Inspector Matthew Venn that sets is apart from being completely cozy. And I like that. I like that a lot.

The Raging Storm is a worthy and welcome addition to the series and I look forward to future installments. I'll also be checking out the other novels in the Shetland and Vera series by Anne Cleeves. She's the real deal.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Minotaur Books for the digital advanced copy. The Raging Storm will be published on September 5, 2023 and is available for pre-order now. Figure out a way to get your hand on this book! So. Good.

If you enjoy character-driven police procedurals, then Ann Cleeves’s Two Rivers series is a series to consider. Featuring Detective Inspector Matthew Venn and his team, the third book in the series, The Raging Storm , mainly takes place in and around the small community Greystone in Devon England.

Adventurer, sailor, and former member of the community, Jem Rosco, arrives on stormy night at the local pub. He’s rented a nearby cottage, but he disappears after a month, only to be found dead in a dinghy off Scully Cove.

Matthew Venn is called to the scene along with his sergeant Jen Rafferty and another member of Venn’s team: Ross May. As they investigate, Venn must deal with the fact that he visited this community as a child with his parents. Many members of Greystone are members of a religious community that Venn once was part of, but left. Secrets abound in this multi-layered story.

Venn is honest, likes background information, loves maps, focuses on logic, and is somewhat inscrutable. However, he has self-doubts, lacks charisma, and doesn’t like enclosed spaces. Jen is the single mother of two teenagers and faces the challenge of balancing her work and personal lives. She’s also passionate about her work and somewhat impulsive. Ross is a younger member of the team and is jealous of Jen. He doesn’t feel his efforts are appreciated even though Venn praises him several times for doing a good job.

The plot is full of secrets and tangled relationships. The more the team investigates, the more convoluted things feel. Superstition and rumor mix with facts to cloud the investigation. Class, money, and privilege (or the lack of it) are also woven into the complex story. The book is also very atmospheric with storms continually hitting the community. However, I felt the novel slowed down a little too much in places.

Overall, this was an atmospheric book with great characterization and a complex plot. I would recommend it to those who enjoy character-driven police procedurals. This book works well as a standalone novel, but would be even better if read in order.

St. Martin’s Press, Minotaur Books and Ann Cleeves provided a complimentary digital ARC of this novel via NetGalley. All opinions expressed in this review are my own. Publication date is currently set for September 05, 2023.

Such rugged terrain makes this case difficult. And a load of secrets. The detectives have their hands full as bodies pile up. Away from home and injuries happen. I liked the book. And the ending was a surprise.

The Raging Storm by Ann Cleeves
A Detective Matthew Venn Novel #3

Detective Inspector Matthew Venn never lets his face show what he's thinking. He's shut up tight, having grown up in a cultish religion, with a mother who didn't even want his dad to show any sign of affection to their son. His past haunts him and it even affects the way he deals with his spouse.

Sergeant Jen Rafferty is a single mother of two teens and lives with the daily guilt of choosing her job over her children day after day. She loves her kids but when it comes to being with them or working on a case, she can't help wanting to be on the job. And now she's longing for a baby, crazy because of her non mother-y ways, working all the time, and not having a man in her life.

Sergeant Ross May is the trendy one. He also has a hard time not feeling jealous and resentful of both Matthew and Jen. He's very smart but he can't help feeling he knows better than the other two and thinks he is often being ignored or slighted.

Despite personal and personality problems, these three make a great team. Sailor, adventurer, celebrity, Jem Rosco has been found dead in the community that houses the religious group that haunted and ostracized Matthew. Being in this area brings back bad memories and now he is having to question members of the church since several of them seem to have ties to the dead man. With a storm raging or threats of another storm, this rocky, wet, financially failing area is not a place he wants to be. But the people here don't seem to really want to help him solve the case so he can be out of their hair. Many know nothing about the death of the man but those that might aren't always forthcoming. Interviewing people here is a tedious and time consuming task but all three members of the team love their jobs and will get the job done despite the fact that things get more murky and complex the deeper they dig. I really like these three characters a lot, despite their broken parts. Only the reader gets to see those parts because these three know how to do their jobs with professionalism, no matter their feelings and thoughts.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press, Minotaur Books, and NetGalley for this ARC.

I've read and enjoyed the first two books in this series featuring North Devon Detective Matthew Venn, who's an intriguing character beyond the mind he uses to solve crimes. Not only did he leave the cult-like religion to which his parents adhere, but he found and married the love of his life, a pleasant and capable chap named Jonathan. This time around, he's back "home" in Greystone, the land of his childhood and still home to many of the super-religious Brethren - who basically tossed him from the fold in a very public manner years ago.

So it with a bit of trepidation that Matthew leaves Jonathan and heads to Scully Cove, where the naked body of a local man Jem Roscoe, who's gained fame as a sailor is found abandoned in a dinghy. Blood found in the bathroom of the place Jem was staying offered proof that the death was no accident. From that point on, Matthew and his team battle nasty weather, but while the suspect list grows almost by the day, the investigation turns up little to no real evidence. The story actually moves rather sluggishly - mirroring, perhaps, cases that happen in the real world - until closer to the end when a second dead body turns up. This one - an individual who is at least under consideration as the culprit - may well be a suicide; but Matthew's keen instincts, and the keen investigative skills of his team including Jen Rafferty and Ross May, prove otherwise.

Meantime, Matthew is a bit concerned about his relationship with Jonathan, who's clearly got something on his mind he wants to share, but the murders don't leave much down time for heart-to-hearts. By the end, though, both the murders and Jonathan's dilemma are known to readers, with one of them providing fodder for the next book. All in all, it's another enjoyable reading experience, and I thank the publisher, via NetGalley, for providing me once again with a pre-release copy for review.

I have read other previous books by the talented author Ann Cleeves. Her newest book, The Raging Storm, is probably my new favorite written by her. Five stars.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC.

I've only read one other Ann Cleeves (a Vera Stanhope) but I fell in love with her right away. She knows how to write a mystery with a slow burn and interesting characters. However, this book just wasn't for me. I just could NOT get into it. The beginning is maddeningly slow, I don't care about anyone, and the minutiae of taking crime scene photos was just too much. And I don't think it's because I jumped straight into the 3rd book of the series. It just wasn't for me. The nautical theme was boring and I just don't care about the details of dinghy's.

However, this in no way means I'm done with Ann Cleeves. I plan to get right back into Vera Stanhope as soon as I can, though I doubt I'll be following up with Matthew Venn ever again.

Another good entry in the Two Rivers series by Ann Cleeves! Thanks to NetGalley and St Martin's Press for the ARC to read and review. 4.5 stars.
The mystery is that of Jem Roscoe a local sailor turned famous adventurer. He returns to Greystone Devon and is murdered. Matthew Venn and the team take on the case. Great to see familiar characters in a fabulous series. I did feel that the relationship between Matthew and his husband Jonathon was a little different in this story. Is Jonathon keeping some secrets??
Once again the Bretheren which Matthew grew up with plays a role in the story as well. These are interesting and unusual characters that I have enjoyed reading about.
The plot is tight and extremely well done. The setting is alive from the descriptions.
The reader follows the police investigation as though they are part of it - a feature I always like. it is a slow and careful evolve and the reader gets each new clue along with the team.
Overall this is a great addition to the series and hopefully will be made into a feature on Britbox.

Jem Rosco shows up in a town from his past, waiting for a meet up with an undisclosed friend. One morning, a call comes in to the town lifeboats about a vessel in distress. When the lifeboats recover Jem’s lifeless, stabbed body, the detectives swoop in to find a murderer in a small town with a colorful past and tight lipped secrets.

Unfortunately this book missed the mark for me. It is the third in a series, yet I read it as a standalone. I personally do not think this book was capable of being a standalone, and that is probably my own fault for reading this one without reading the previous two. It lacked true character qualities and left things very vague (which I’m assuming were explained in the first two books). I didn’t love any of the characters (too many to even care about one or two), and I truly didn’t care who murdered Jem or why. It was extremely uninteresting to me and dragged on for 400 pages that felt like 4,000. I’m sure this book would be fine if I had read the first two, but as it is, I give two stars.

The Raging Storm is a very atmospheric read in the Two River Series.

This is Book 3 and my favourite to date ( until Book 4 comes along).

You can feel the wind howling the chill of the rain and the fierceness of the waves.

Jem Roscoe's body is found floating in a dinghy during the storm and its up to DI Matthew Venn and his team to solve this puzzling case .

The air is full of drama, suspicions, secrets and a local legend of the area being cursed.

Ann Cleeves knows how to pull you in and keep you hooked .

At times I was holding my breath and hoping everyone makes it through this case intact.

The ending was well done and I hated this book to end.

I cant wait to see where Book 4 takes Matthew and his team next.

Thanks to Net Galley and St Martin's Press, Minotaur Books for a gripping read.

Atmospheric police procedural mystery that kept me guessing until the end. Fast paced read that has me going back to read the first two in the series.

Matthew Venn and his crew are called in when Jem Rosco’s body is found on a stranded boat during a storm. The investigation, which is described in minute detail, takes place during the week Venn’s three person team is searching for the culprit. It is well constructed with the exception of the minutia that, in my opinion, made for slow reading and a convoluted plot. Thanks to Net Galley and Minotaur Books for an ARC for an honest review.

Jem Rosco was a national hero - sailing around the world and then to other exotic places - but he came back to Greystone and was murdered there and left naked on a dinghy in Scully Cove. Matthew Venn received the call to investigate the murder in the community near his mother's home. The village, made up of religious Brethern and those who were not religious at all, was suspicious of outsiders which made it difficult to get answers to Venn's questions. Rosco kept a low personal profile but the love of his life, Nell Wren, still lived in Greystone and Venn looked to her for information about Rosco's early life. Venn and his sergeant, Ross, were in grave danger before the murder was solved.
Cleeves has written another page turner in the Rivers series. The twists and turns alternatively made me read on for "just one more chapter" and put the book down so it would last a bit longer. The pacing is just right and her writing brings the characters to life. Their actions are believable, based on the circumstances they find themselves in. I look forward to seeing this episode on film.
Thank you Netgalley for the ARC of this book; the opinions expressed are mine.

I have read Ann Cleeves Vera Stanhope series before and enjoyed it. I received this book from Netgalley and it was book number 3 in the Detective Venn Series. I really enjoyed the book but felt that it alluded to a lot that had gone on in the previous two books with three Detectives; especially the lead Matthew Venn. His past in Greystone and the Brethren religion / cult seemed to have a lot of impact on the story as far as his character. However, Venn is called to solve the mystery of a local celebrity, Jen, who is found dead in a boat in the middle of a storm blowing in. The plot itself as they work to solve the mystery and navigate the locals who do not seem happy to have the detectives in town. Especially one that was originally part of the Brethren but was removed from it even thou his mother was still involved. Venn works with fellow detectives Jen and Ross who have a interesting working relationship and how they work to solve the case but also vie for the attention and approval of Venn. Johnathan who is Venn's husband is a added bonus when he comes to the scene of the investigation. Overall, great book that kept me guessing until the end as to what was happening.