The rising tide by Ann Cleeves

The amazing tidal patterns of Holy Island north of Newcastle in northern England is a focus for this setting rich novel, DCI Vera Stanhope’s tenth outing.

Called to investigate the suicide of a well known but lately dishonoured TV personality, Vera sees reasons to suspect a murder has been committed. With the victim is a small cast of friends all holidaying together on the island, staying at Pilgrim House, a retreat on the island, once peopled by nuns. Their movement is bound by the tide, and secrets lay deeply hidden. The group has been meeting together every five years, celebrating their time at school. Their first stay at Lindisfarne was at a school camp, organised by a with-it young teacher. But their first reunion saw the drowning death of their most attractive member, Isobel, and the acknowledgment of this incident is a topic to be avoided. The five, married couple, Louise and Ken, the latter suffering from dementia, Phillip, now a priest, the dead man Rick, and Annie now running a bakery at Newcastle. All have baggage which Vera’s team unravels for our delight. Other people skirt the edges of the five, Annie was married to Daniel divorced after their baby died some forty years ago, but he is now married to  DCC Katherine Whillmore. It is her daughter who initiated the claim of sexual assault against Rick resulting in his sacking. The teacher, Judith is also nearby, while Rick’s ex wife Charlotte enters the scene.

Vera and her team uncover the layers beneath the group’s closeness, finding links between them which point to a greater knowledge about Rick and his interests. Forced to resign after improper advances towards a young girl at the TV station, Rick is now writing a novel, and when Vera finally gets the synopsis and chapter outlines finds it is about Isobel’s death, the veneer of fiction barely obscuring the truth.

With all three of the investigative team sometimes going back to the mainland, sometimes staying overnight on the island, the importance of the tide becomes paramount to their comings and goings. The towers that dot the causeway metres above the roadway are testament to the height and speed at which the tide advances, often trapping people unawares.

Behind the old simmering resentments the present day is set in motion when Rick tells them about his book. Daniel sidelined at his high end holiday resort, Annie struggling to make ends meet at her bakery, Charlotte needing money to bolster up her massage business,  Rick’s accuser seeing that she was led on by an ambitious journalist, Judith coming to the island to reenter the group but thinking better of it: all have motives aplenty to be investigated and rejected. When a second murder occurs, Charlotte found dead in he massage room, the investigation becomes urgent, that urgency culminating in the team taking risks  with heart in the mouth results.

Themes: Murder, Lindisfarne, Northumbria, Vera Stanhope, Cold case.

Fran Knight