In my previous review of Ann Cleeves’ Shetland and Vera series, I suggested that the TV versions were better than the books. When I was preparing that one I had finished the first three Shetland books and requested the first Vera novel from my library. But it was unavailable then and only turned up a few days ago. I thought I’d read The Crow Trap anyway. Glad I did. It does not suffer from the same flaws I found in the Shetland books. Written in 1999 (several years before the Shetland series), it begins as a tale of three women sent to do an ecological study of a proposed quarry site. Vera doesn’t come into it until the book is over half done, after one of the women, Grace, is murdered. (This after two characters try their own hand at an investigation of the suicide that opens the book.) The section of the book about Grace is a beautifully sensitive story of a young girl growing up in foster care after the death of her mother. This alone makes the book worth reading. (This first look at Vera is also not much like the TV version. She is rude and full of herself in a way much softened in the TV series.) I cannot say why the difference in style of the — admittedly — mere four Cleeves books I’ve read. But maybe I’ll try one more.
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