Red Bones: A Thriller (Shetland Island Thrillers) [Hardcover]

Ann Cleeves (Author)

Book Description

Series: Shetland Island Thrillers | Publication Date: September 1, 2009

When a young archaeologist discovers a set of human remains, the locals are intrigued. Is it an ancient find—or a more contemporary mystery? Then an elderly woman is fatally shot and Ann Cleeves’s popular series detective Jimmy Perez is called in. As claustrophobic mists swirl around the island, Inspector Perez finds himself totally in the dark.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. In Cleeves's excellent third Shetland Island thriller (after White Nights), Insp. Jimmy Perez investigates the shooting death of Mima Wilson, the grandmother of Perez's bumbling if well-meaning underling, Sandy Wilson. While some believe Sandy's cousin Ronald accidentally shot Mima late one night near her croft on Whalsay, a small Shetland island, Perez has his doubts. Mima's land is the site of an archeological excavation led by eager Ph.D. student Hattie James, who recently uncovered a skeleton of indeterminate origin. When another body turns up near the dig site, Perez becomes more suspicious, even though the second death is an apparent suicide. With Sandy's help, he begins to unravel a knot of tall tales and family betrayals that stretches back to a WWII resistance movement known as the Shetland Bus. As in the best traditional English village whodunits, the killer lurks among the townspeople, but his or her identity still comes as a shock. (Sept.)
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About the Author

ANN CLEEVES is reader-in-residence for the Harrogate Crime Writing Festival, and was twice shortlisted for the CWA Dagger Award before winning the first Duncan Lawrie Dagger Award for Raven Black. Red Bones is her third thriller set in the Shetland Island. She lives in Yorkshire, England.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: Minotaur Books; First Edition edition (September 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312384343
• ISBN-13: 978-0312384340
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #729,263 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars FASCINATING STORY, September 27, 2009

By 

Barbara Lane "Audio Books only" (Sydney Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Red Bones: A Thriller (Shetland Island Thrillers) (Hardcover)

This is the third novel in a projected Shetland Islands Quartet, following Cleeves's award winning "Raven Black" and "White Nights."

An archeological dig has started on Whalsay Island where the remains of the oldest house in the area are rumoured to have been. So methodically the team of Hattie James and Sophie are doing a painstakingly slow excavation to see what they can find.

Mima (Jemima) Wilson, the owner of the property, is found dead.. It seems that she was killed by a shotgun presumedly by a rabbit shooter out late at night and not realising what he has hit.

The young father who admits to being out that night late rabbit shooting is horrified. He takes responsibility for the terrible accident. His wife has just given birth. What a terrible situation for this young lovely couple to be in. He feels like the town will shun him. He feels he can't even go to the local pub as he is worried what people would think and he decides to give up alcohol totally. He had been drinking that night.

The Shetland Islands are such a close knit community and everyone knows everyone elses business.

A few days later Hattie James, PhD student and the moving force behind the dig is found in the trench with her wrists slit. Suicide but why did she do it??? It doesn't make sense. Or was it murder?

The pace is steady but not quick, as the layers of this close knit community are peeled away

If you enjoy getting to know real, vulnerable, and interesting characters - then add this book to your shopping cart.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars RED BONES A MYSTERY, October 10, 2009

By 

Ms. Wyatt "Mystery Lover" (Texas USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Red Bones: A Thriller (Shetland Island Thrillers) (Hardcover)

Red Bones a book that is more than a mystery, it is an atmospheric and loving trip to the Shetland Islands, I can't wait for a new book by this author. I have never read a book where I feel I've experienced the rain, wind and sunshine that she portrays so well on these islands!!!!

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Meandering Plot that suffers from a glaring flaw, April 4, 2011

By 

W. Lancaster - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Red Bones: A Thriller (Shetland Island Thrillers) (Paperback)

Note: I have not read any of the other books in the series.

Generally speaking, there are two ways to set up a mystery novel. The first is to give all the relevant facts right at the beginning and then follow the detective as he/she figures out why they are all important and the second is to follow the detective as she/he uncovers clue after clue and slowly builds a picture.

This novel follows neither way. There is no sense of Perez putting facts together to reach the final picture. As a detective he's actually rather passive and just sort of floats through the novel. The fact that there are three only tangentially related plot threads didn't help. I kept hoping that they would all come together in a brilliant fashion but in the end one peters out, one is solved by an unsupported burst of insight from a previously uninsightful character, and the third is the main plot line which I will get back to. All and all, this is more of a description of the Shetland island then it is a mystery novel.

If that were all this would be a three star review, unfortunately, Cleeves then proceeds to commit a major sin of mystery writers in resolving the main plotline. There is a hidden fact that the Detective, Perez, knows that we the reader do not. This fact is revealed only in the final explanation and the book even hides the time Perez spent researching this fact.

This mystery is not resolvable with the presented information.