Thin Air: A Shetland Mystery: 6 (Shetland Island Mysteries)

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Cleeves excels at creating a sense of place and painting visual pictures which employ all the senses. Even though few will be able to visit these rather remote islands, you have a true sense of being there, with the long days and weather contributing to the plot. To this, she adds just a touch of the supernatural still leaving you to question whether it truly is. A group of old university friends leave the bright lights of London and travel to Shetland to celebrate the marriage of one of their friends. But, one of them, Eleanor, disappears—apparently into thin air. It's mid-summer, a time of light nights and unexpected mists. And then Eleanor's body is discovered lying in a small loch close to the cliff edge. Unfortunately after the party, one of the English girls is found murdered. Who could have murdered the outsider is the question of the novel. The local myth of Perrie Lizzie, a young girl found drowned many years ago plays a part in the mystery. Has the young girl appeared as a ghost and a participant in the murder?

It also means, in this series, that the resolution at the end is lengthy and complex, and sometimes stretches credibility a little more than more direct mystery solutions. I am obviously in the mood for light, relaxing reads, and this one, a murder mystery with a touch of suspense and a pinch of ghostliness was a great experience. Ann is the author of the books behind ITV's VERA, now in it's third series, and the BBC's SHETLAND, which will be aired in December 2012. Ann's DI Vera Stanhope series of books is set in Northumberland and features the well loved detective along with her partner Joe Ashworth. Ann's Shetland series bring us DI Jimmy Perez, investigating in the mysterious, dark, and beautiful Shetland Islands... Sandy kind of came into his own in this one I thought. We get to see an old love of his, but he is also wondering about the death of a young girl from about 70 years ago and how it can tie into this case now. Jimmy also has the opportunity to visit the family of the dead woman in London. It is fascinating to see how he interacts with the urban community and the sophisticated people with whom he feels such an outsider. He takes his adopted daughter with him and there is some exploration of the strained relationships between him and her family. I liked these interludes and the contrast between the urban life and the island life.The series brings a delightful place on Earth's surface to light. (Pun optional.) As we follow Jimmy, Willow, and Sandy around in their investigations, the Shetlands feel like so much more than the land that holds the characters up as they walk around. The islands are palpable to me, as though looking out the window while I'm reading about Unst will show me Unst instead of Long Beach. That's a great feeling to have when reading a book about a place I've never been. Where, as usual, the author distinguishes herself and makes this book outstanding is in the description of the island, its people and the island life. The author has no illusions and doesn’t assume that everyone living on the island is simple or innocent in any way. She does, however, maker us understand that it is a slower and different way of life from that outside the islands. The lifestyle of the islanders is very much wrapped up in the landscape and environment in which they live. I really got a feeling of the isolation of the islands and also of the traditions which are so important to the people who live there. There is a slight element of a ghost story here connected with the legend of a dead child – this is nicely interwoven with the story and adds an interesting, eerie note from time to time. In fact, the tension and atmosphere is extremely well done in this book and there is a developing feeling of menace all the way through the story.

Four friends -- two couples -- have come to Unst, the most northern of the Shetland Islands, to help a friend celebrate her wedding to a native of the island. The same night as the celebration, one of the four vanishes, leaving behind a text message that reads like a suicide note. The body is found the next day, with Inspector Perez and Chief Inspector Willow Reeves called to handle the investigation. Eleanor Longstaff was found murdered on Unst in Shetland which is the furtherst north a person can go in the United Kingdom. She was in Unst to celebrate the hamefarin (wedding reception) of Caroline Lawson and Lowrie Malcomson, friends from college. Upon her death, people start to talk about the ghost of Peerie Lizzie, a ten year old girl, who drowned in 1930 on the island. Polly Gilmour, a college and long-time friend of Eleanor's, starts to actually see the little girl. Six friends - three couples - come to Shetland. One set, Lowrie and Calorine, to celebrate their marriage (or the like). Then Caroline's two best friends, Polly and Eleanor, and their partners. Eleanor has her own production company is intending to make a documentary about a local ghost story - sightings of a child that drowned many years ago. Polly and Eleanor both claim to have seen the ghost after a walk on the beach. Then one night, Eleanor gets murdered. Jimmy Perez and Willow investigate. It's the usual claustrophobic island life investigation into dirty family secrets. Willow finds herself thinking of Jimmy in a different way in this one, and I can see where the wind is blowing there. But I like that it didn't take precedence over the actual mystery.

So if you're in the mood for a highly atmospheric, picturesque detective drama in the British Shetland Isles, try this one.

The investigation starts to take the investigators Jimmy Perez, Sandy Wilson, and Willow Reeves into ghost stories, abandoned crofts, and family histories better left forgotten. This is a fast pace read that will leave you confuse until the end. Another plus about this book you, the reader, get a sense of what the island looks and feels like with the descriptions of cliffs, voes, planticurbs, and wildlife.That can be both interesting and a little less satisfying in an ending that you’d like to finally relax into, saying, ah, of course, I get it. Instead you work at processing the complex revelations all the way to the end. The judging panel consisted of Geoff Bradley (non-voting Chair), Lyn Brown MP (a committee member on the London Libraries service), Frances Gray (an academic who writes about and teaches courses on modern crime fiction), Heather O'Donoghue (academic, linguist, crime fiction reviewer for The Times Literary Supplement, and keen reader of all crime fiction) and Barry Forshaw (reviewer and editor of Crime Time magazine). Sometimes he thought it was the life of an islander that had attracted her, rather than him as a man, but maybe after all these years that didn't matter. Thin Air" takes place 6 months after the events in the last book, "Dead Water". We follow Inspector Jimmy Perez as he is called away to help find a missing woman who was in Shetland for a wedding party. Many people think that the English woman is just missing, but when she is found murdered, Jimmy, Sandy, and Willow have to find out who wanted the woman dead and why.

I'm going to throw the blurb in here. It's much more descriptive than I can make it. And please, humor me, and fall in love with the beautiful cover too, like I did. Running parallel to the murder mystery is a subplot involving the ghost of Peerie Lizzie, a young girl who died in 1930. Her family lived in Springfield House & according to local folklore, she can still be seen dancing on the beach nearby. As the book progresses, both story lines are developed until it becomes clear there are ties between the present & the past. I did like the writing in this one a lot and the clues that Cleeves leaves for us to find. This one felt more intricated and at times reminded me of a Vera Stanhope novel. Just with a lot less loathing of colleagues that Vera has going on most of the time.So Jimmy is doing much better in this book, it's been a year since he lost Fran and he is working cases. The fact that he is able to leave Cassie with her father for some over nights says a lot about how much he has loosened up. He still has pain over Fran, but is trying to be better and make sure Cassie sees her grandparents. The missing woman was part of 2 couples who travelled from London to see one of their friends marry an island man. The women have known each other since uni so you'd think they had no secrets between them. You'd be wrong. The flow of the book works from beginning to end and I honestly didn't put this one down until the murderer was revealed. A difficult mystery to work out, as usual with the series. That’s enjoyable of course,as mystery readers enjoy being mentally engaged in the puzzle throughout the book and needing to work for it.