Cold Earth (Shetland Island Series #7)

by Ann Cleeves

Overview

Cold Earth is the seventh book in Ann Cleeves’ beloved Shetland series, which is now a major success for the BBC, and available to stream in the US.

From Ann Cleeves, winner of the Crime Writers Association's Diamond Dagger Award, comes Cold Earth.

In the dark days of a Shetland winter, torrential rain triggers a landslide that crosses the main road and sweeps down to the sea.

At the burial of his old friend Magnus Tait, Jimmy Perez watches the flood of mud and water smash through a house in its path. Everyone thinks the home is uninhabited, but in the wreckage he finds the body of a dark-haired woman wearing a red silk dress. Perez soon becomes obsessed with tracing her identity and realizes he must find out who she was and how she died.

Cold Earth is the seventh book in the beloved Shetland series, which is now a major success for the BBC.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250182135
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	07/03/2018
Series:	Shetland Island Series , #7
Pages:	400
Sales rank:	83,822
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

ANN CLEEVES is the multi-million copy bestselling author behind three hit television series—Shetland, starring Douglas Henshall, Vera, starring Academy Award Nominee Brenda Blethyn, and The Long Call, starring Ben Aldridge—all of which are watched and loved in the United States. All three are available on BritBox.

The first Shetland novel, Raven Black, won the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger for best crime novel, and Ann was awarded the CWA Diamond Dagger in 2017. She was awarded the OBE in 2022 for services to reading and libraries. Ann lives in the United Kingdom.

Editorial Reviews

Praise for Cold Earth:

"The stark Shetland landscape provides an atmospheric backdrop for Cleeves's complex, relatable characters, especially Perez, a kind man dealing with his own tragic past."—Publishers Weekly

"The Shetland Islands provide a stunningly atmospheric setting for the complicated hero [Perez]’s latest procedural, a challenge he meets with determination and more than a little angst."—Kirkus Reviews

"Plenty of suspects on a remote Scottish island mixed with the high quality of Cleeves's prose make this a solidly plotted whodunit for procedural and traditional mystery readers."—Library Journal

Praise for the Shetland Island series:

"Ann Cleeves confirms that she is the best living evoker of landscape with Cold Earth."—The Guardian, Best Crime Books and Thrillers of 2016

"Nothing short of riveting." —Louise Penny

"In true Christie fashion, Cleeves once more pulls the wool over our eyes with cunning and conviction." —Colin Dexter, author of the Inspector Morse series

"Intricate and engrossing...offers readers the pleasures of the traditional locked room/isolated island mystery." —The Washington Post Book World

"A key feature of the best crime writing is a vivid sense of place, and Cleeves gives us Shetland in all its rugged, rain-swept splendour, an island where if everyone doesn’t know everyone else, it’s only a matter of time."—Irish Times

"This sixth in the series of Jimmy Perez Shetland mysteries is every bit as good as we have come to expect from Cleeves." —Reviewing The Evidence

"Cleeves excels in capturing Shetland’s stark, harsh beauty: the windswept land, the gray churning ocean, and hovering clouds. The often gloomy landscape is the perfect setting for tragic death by murder. Always eerie and haunting (thanks to the ghost of Peerie Lizzie) and certainly mysterious, Thin Air is perhaps the best and most compelling in the series so far." —Curled Up

From the Publisher

02/20/2017
The ground shifts in more ways than one for Det. Insp. Jimmy Perez in CWA Diamond Dagger–winner Cleeves’s moody seventh Shetland mystery (after 2016’s Thin Air). At the funeral of old Magnus Tait, who was once accused of murder, the rain-soaked hillside above the mourners gives way and nearly buries them under a massive landslide. No one at the cemetery is hurt, but the body of a woman in a red dress is discovered in the ruins of a house on the hill, and no one seems to know who she is. Jimmy’s obsession with uncovering her identity only deepens when he learns that she was murdered before the landslide occurred. The Scottish oil boom brings many outlanders to the island, but Jimmy suspects the killer is someone close to home and sets about unraveling a tangled web of relationships among the locals. The stark Shetland landscape provides an atmospheric backdrop for Cleeves’s complex, relatable characters, especially Perez, a kind man dealing with his own tragic past. Agent: Sarah Menguc, Sarah Menguc Literary Agent (U.K.). (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

03/01/2017
During the graveside service of his friend Magnus, Insp. Jimmy Perez (last seen in Thin Air) watches as a heavy storm initiates a mudslide that damages part of the cemetery, the main road, and an empty rental cottage. Jimmy checks out the cottage and discovers the body of a woman wearing a red silk dress. He's determined to uncover her identity and solve her murder. The potential for the professional relationship between Jimmy and fellow detective Willow Reeves to become more personal will intrigue series regulars. VERDICT Plenty of suspects on a remote Scottish island mixed with the high quality of Cleeves's prose make this a solidly plotted whodunit for procedural and traditional mystery readers. The Crime Writers' Association (CWA) recently announced that Cleeves, a longtime advocate of libraries, is to receive the CWA Diamond Dagger, the highest honor in British crime writing. [See Prepub Alert, 10/17/16.]--ACT

Library Journal

Narrator Kenny Blyth transports listeners to the Shetland Islands with his delightful and easily understood Scots brogue. He subtly modifies that accent to reflect the many characters who allow listeners into their ordinary and mysterious lives. DI Jimmy Perez searches for the identity of a woman whose body is uncovered in the aftermath of a muddy landslide that transforms his island’s landscape and pushes him to let go of the past and look towards the future. Blyth’s talent with acting and accents makes for an engaging, well-paced listen. One doesn’t have to be familiar with the earlier works in the series, but the backstory and earlier adventures are certainly worth seeking out. E.Q. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine

MAY 2017 - AudioFile

2017-02-21
A landslide reveals a dead body and a tricky case for Shetland Islands detective Jimmy Perez (Thin Air, 2015, etc.).The miserable winter weather has done nothing to help Jimmy get over the murder of Fran, the woman he loved. Standing at the graveside of Magnus Tait, an old friend, Jimmy and the other mourners barely escape a sudden landslide that decimates a little croft house. Although the place is supposed to be uninhabited ever since the owner died and left it to a relative in America, a quick check reveals the body of a woman. As soon as the autopsy reveals that the woman was strangled, Jimmy calls in Police Scotland in the person of Chief Inspector Willow Reeves. Their first task is to identify the body. When the neighbors at the farm next door claim to know nothing, Jimmy, with the help of slow but steady assistant Sandy Wilson, expands his questioning over the entire island. The victim was seen buying champagne at a local store, having a drink at a hotel with a middle-aged man, and visiting a local counseling center. The name she gave the center was false, but it does lead them to the destroyed house's owner and the striking victim's true identity. Through it all, Jimmy, who's taking care of Fran's daughter and still feeling guilty about her death, isn't sure if he's ready for love. But he and Willow, who have a more than collegial relationship, work well together. Once they know who the mysterious stranger really is, they identify a surprising number of suspects who happen to be Jimmy's friends. The Shetland Islands provide a stunningly atmospheric setting for the complicated hero's latest procedural, a challenge he meets with determination and more than a little angst.

Kirkus Reviews