The Heron’s Cry: A Detective Matthew Venn Novel (The Two Rivers Series, 2)

Detective Inspector Matthew Venn has been called to the scene of a grisly murder at an artist’s studio. The father of a glassblower was stabbed in her studio with a piece of her own work. DS Jen Rafferty, after a night of heavy drinking, arrives to find it is a place she has been before. She had a one-nighter with one of the residents, Wes, a musician and artist. Awkward, but not enough to keep her off the case. The victim’s daughter, Eve, is the one who found him. Just a couple of days later, Eve is lured to Wes’s in-town studio where she discovers his body, also killed with a piece of her glass art. The investigation discovers a link to some suicides and becomes really complex and difficult. Can they solve this one?

Ann Cleeves is a master storyteller and has great mystery franchises going with her Vera novels and the Matthew Venn series, this being the second in that series. The writing is terrific, the characters are well-rounded and very British with fascinating back-stories, and the stories, as this one is, are complex and compelling. Mystery fans will love this book.