The Heron's Cry by Ann Cleeves

Currently reading this book, set in Devon.

​The Heron's Cry is the second novel in the No.1 Sunday Times bestselling series featuring detective Matthew Venn, from the creator of Vera and Shetland, Ann Cleeves.

North Devon is enjoying a rare hot summer with tourists flocking to its coastline. Detective Matthew Venn is called out to a rural crime scene at the home of a group of artists. What he finds is an elaborately staged murder - Dr Nigel Yeo has been fatally stabbed with a shard of one of his glassblower daughter's broken vases.

Dr Yeo seems an unlikely murder victim. He's a good man, a public servant, beloved by his daughter. Matthew is unnerved though to find that she is a close friend of Jonathan, his husband.

Then another body is found - killed in a similar way. Matthew finds himself treading carefully through the lies that fester at the heart of his community and a case that is dangerously close to home...

The Long Call and The Heron's Cry are part of Ann Cleeves' Two Rivers series and have been recently commissioned for ITV.

Published by Pan Macmillan on 2 September 2021.
​Advanced review copy supplied by the publisher.