The Rising Tide (Vera Stanhope)

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A group of friends who knew each other in grammar school gather every five years on Holy Island for a weekend together. After dropping out of university she took a number of temporary jobs - child care officer, women's refuge leader, bird observatory cook, auxiliary coastguard - before going back to college and training to be a probation officer. His working life moved to the beat of funeral services, the tolling of the church bell, the march of pall-bearers. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

I won't be reading anything further from this author after being bored by the story and enraged by the cruelness directed to her main character over and over again. I was excited for this to be released and was really enjoying it until I got to the part where an important plot point is a young woman's false accusation of sexual harassment. The author does not describe the skinny women as though they eat like birds or may fall through the cracks in the floorboards if they turned sideways, nor does she make much mention of the larger male character in the story’s size beyond what is necessary to convey he has put on weight as he’s aged.Asked about the future of Vera, she said: “Every time we finish a series I say I’m not going to be doing any more. Ann Cleeves's latest DI Vera Stanhope is a chilling and shocker of an addition to her wonderful Northumberland set series. A thrilling tale with an ending that catches you by surprise, it’s a story both newbies to Vera and diehard fans will enjoy. It seemed to him now that he’d spent the rest of his life trying to find relationships that were as intense and fulfilling as those developed here. Holly is a wonderful but young police detective who is always looking for validation from Vera, her boss.

This year would mark fifty years of friendship and he needed to offer a prayer of thanks and to remember. This is a superb setting especially as the tide rises and rolls in adding an extra dimension of atmosphere especially as concealed secrets find their way to the surface, bubbling up like the waves. Philip is an Anglican priest; Annie is co-owner of a local deli; and Kenneth - now married to a woman named Louise - is succumbing to dementia. Why bother writing a plus sized character if you hate her (and really ALL plus sized women) so much? In 1987 Tim, Ann and their two daughters moved to Northumberland and the north east provides the inspiration for many of her subsequent titles.Cleeves’ books are strongly character driven, and Holly Island becomes another character in this story. Judith Marshall, a 'hippy new-age' personality who led the first group in bonding activities, is now retired and heavily involved in the church. This kind of trite contrarianism in writing about sexual harassment and assault is so tiresome and lame and sad. Daniel Rede is Annie's former husband, now a wealthy developer of exclusive holiday resorts on the island. Every five years, these former school mates meet for a reunion on Holy Island, a small piece of land that becomes a literal island at high tide.

Forming a close knot group, they decided to have a reunion after five years and then continued meeting every five years, bringing along partners and kids until now they are back more or less to the original core group. Vera is certain the past, the history between these friends, is relevant, although her team are less convinced, but she is their boss and what she says goes.Overweight, disheveled, dowdy Vera resembles a bag lady and is mistaken for a cleaning lady in this story. As they drink and tell stories, Rick is remarkably upbeat, he has plans in the pipeline, but by the morning he is dead, and Vera is to be proved right when his 'suicide' turns out to be a case of murder, one which attracts the attention of the media. With Vera, Joe, and Holly on Holy Island they realize that a group of friends who have been coming to the island for 50 years may know more than they are saying after their friend is found dead by hanging. By the time of the first reunion - when the participants were in their early twenties - Rick and Charlotte were married, and Annie and Daniel were married and mourning the recent loss of an infant. It’s a well written novel with a plot that goes at a brisk pace and which is extremely well thought out, it thickens and deepens taking us on a twisty journey backwards and forwards across the causeway to Holy Island.