Because I so loved Ann Cleeves' Shetland series, I decided to check out her Vera Stanhope series. And I'm so glad I did! They are fabulous! I'm utterly in love with this author! I've ended up reading the Vera series out of order, but I don't mind at all because they have been so wonderful! I've also read two of her stand-alone novels, and they have been wonderful, too. I think she is my new favorite mystery author.
Interspersed with Ann Cleeves, I've also started on a mystery series by another British author, Stephen Booth. He writes Police Procedurals set in the Peak District of Britain, and they are quite engaging and well-written. I've finished the first four books, and have the next four at hand. So far he's written 12.
The thing I like and appreciate about both these authors is that their crime novels don't involve graphic violence, serial killers, gruesomeness, or sadism. There are generally just one or two murders to be solved, and the emphasis is on the characters and the painstaking search for clues, and not on graphic bloody details about how the murder victims met their ends. No car chases, no gun battles, no American-style cinematic suspense tropes.
Just solid crime detection amid a milieu of ordinary people with their very human flaws.
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