Customer Reviews

Red Bones: A Thriller (Shetland Island Thrillers)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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!!!!

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.

This is the third novel in the Shetland Islands quartet. The first (and best) is Raven Black. While I devoured all three books, the first stands above the other two in its atmospheric qualities and overall creepiness. White Nights was also good, but it started off much more slowly. Red Bones plods a bit more, but was quite satisfying nonetheless. Cleeves is an excellent writer, and she keeps the book under her firm control until the end. Her descriptions of the scenery and island culture are vivid and intriguing -- I would not be surprised if these books cause a spike in tourist visits to Lerwick, Fair Isle, etc. In each book, the reader is kept guessing (or second guessing) until the final twenty pages.

Shetland Islands Inspector Jimmy Perez returns in this third Shetland Islands novel, Red Bones.

Hattie James is working towards achieving her PhD in archeology. She is currently working on her thesis. If she doesn't find something of interest soon, she will have to pack up the excavation and leave. One of the residents, a woman named Evelyn wants to join the dig. Hattie agrees and her and Evelyn start digging at a practice site. What they dig up will have the whole island in an upheaval.

Mima Wilson is not a very well liked woman. She is judgmental and rude. So when she is found shot to death, her death brings mixed emotions. Inspector Perez can usually keep his work from becoming personal but this time is different. Mima was the grandmother of Perez's assistant, Sandy Wilson. Inspector Perez starts doing some investigating. He wonders if Mima's death and the discovery at the excavation site are somehow connected and if so...who would want Mima dead? This is the million dollar question.

Red Bones is the first book I have read by Ann Cleeves. I had been eyeing her work since I first heard about Raven Black but just didn't have the chance till now. I have to say that I am now wondering why I waited so long. This story had all the makings of a classic who-dunnit story. While I love these types of books and I do plan to check out the other two prior novels, there were some times when I did lose a little interest. Partly because there were so many characters that I couldn't keep them straight. Also there wasn't too much of a great mystery involved to determine who the killer was. Though I couldn't figure out the motive till the end. Overall this was a pretty good book.

I found this much better than Raven Black. Ann Cleeves has improved, her characters are more interesting, better described.

However, she still doesn't know how to finish a mystery properly. One has no idea how the inspector, stumbling in the dark a short while ago, suddenly knows just what happened. Like in that earlier book, it is all solved in a couple of pages. And the worst is that the solution is not entirely convincing.

Shetland Islands Inspector Jimmy Perez investigates the murder of Mima Wilson, who was shot to death. The case is somewhat personal as Mima was the grandma of the police detective's subordinate Sandy Wilson. The locals on Whalsay Island believe Mima's grandson Ronald accidentally shot and killed her, but Perez has doubts about the theory.

Instead he wonders if the homicide might be linked to an archeological dig on Mima's land. Ph.D. candidate student Hattie James recently dug up a skeleton that might date back to the fifteenth century or earlier. A second body is found at the excavation location; that person apparently committed suicide leading the detective to assume the bones are contemporary. Perez with Sandy's surprisingly somewhat competent but reluctant help begins to unravel Wilson secrets that date back to WWII and the resistance.

The third Shetland Island police procedural (see RAVEN BLACK and WHITE NIGHTS) is a super whodunit. Jimmy is terrific as he battles the islanders who know Ronald accidentally killed his grandma and thus believe an investigation is a waste of time and money. Fans will enjoy Jimmy's efforts to uncover what really happened on Whalsay Island with no one, not even Sandy who is pulled between family and work loyalties, fully cooperating.

Harriet Klausner

I can't express how much I enjoy this series and it gets better as it goes along. The description of the Islands makes it so realistic that I feel like I'm there. Perez's girlfriend says. "No light pollution, no sound, but they just can't conceive it." Cleeves does a great job of making it conceivable.
The mystery was very layered and the ending really surprised me. This book succeeds on many levels.

I have thoroughly enjoyed this author and the Shetland Island Series. Murder in the small town setting.

I am now a reader of all things Ann Cleeves.

Red Bones carries us on to another case in the Shetlands to which Jimmy Perez applies his persistent calm to get it sorted out.

We see good character development with Perez's somewhat inexperienced and immature colleague, Sandy Wilson, who plays a significant role in the story and refreshingly experiences some growth in maturity as well.

After Sandy's grandmother and lifetime resident of the islands, and a young archaeologist student, an outsider, are found dead within days of one another, Jimmy Perez and Sandy Wilson suspect they might be connected.

The islanders are a tightly knit group and they may be withholding information that would help solve not only these cases, but perhaps an older one as well.

The book meanders through the daily lives of the different characters and one is always aware of the steadily congealing plot, confident in the knowledge that Perez will solve the case.

Cleeves sets the backdrop of the Shetland Islands in such a realistic way, you can almost feel the moistness of the fog, the mist on your face, hear the lament of the distant foghorn, and experience the brace of the northern breeze that can slice right through a person. I had never had the desire to venture farther North than Inverness, but her descriptions of the starkly barren but beautiful scenery as she describes the different Shetland villages in her book, have convinced me I need to experience this place.

I highly recommend this author and this book and I look forward, albeit impatiently, to her next one.