The Rising Tide: A dark, atmospheric mystery from bestseller Ann Cleeves, featuring Vera Stanhope, star of ITV's Vera

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I really enjoyed the Vera presented in this episode: more introspective about those she works with (and how she treats them!

I thought it was the weakest part of the story, so obvious, and so overly used in detective fiction…. This isolation seems to bring Joe and Holly to a closer understanding, almost to a friendship, whereas before they have always been rivals for Vera's approval and affection. In this, the tenth in Anne Cleeve’s excellent series, Vera find’s herself on the lovely but isolated island of Lindisfarne…. Sadly, tragedy struck the reunion event when Isobel's car was caught by a high tide and she drowned. Vera and her team start to investigate and try to figure out what each one of the friend's group is hiding and who has the strongest motive!While she was cooking in the Bird Observatory on Fair Isle, she met her husband Tim, a visiting ornithologist. If I have one criticism, it’s that the killer’s motive didn’t feel strong enough - it felt like a situation that could have been ridden out without resorting to murder. Daniel Rede is Annie's former husband, now a wealthy developer of exclusive holiday resorts on the island. In this standalone that includes characters Joe and Holly, murder suspects drop their defenses before Colombo-like detective Vera Stanhope, a character who understands natives and criminals better than most—and who seems to carry a deep empathy for them all. The Rising Tide is classic Cleeves: an atmospheric, gripping police procedural in which the environment is as deadly as the desperate murderer .

When the group were still in their early 20s and at their very first five-year reunion, one of their members perished in the dangerous waters that surround the island. This is a solid police procedural featuring, of course, the inimitable Vera, who has her own memories of bird raiding trips to the island with her father. She is tenacious, intuitive, although a little too careless of her own safety as she follows leads in this most challenging and tragic of investigations. The almost rivalry between Joe and Holly works well and I like that this team isn’t the seamless group that other series have. They stay at Pilgrims’ House, an austere setting and former nunnery, the scene of their initial getaway when they were teenagers.

Vera knows exactly how to lead her team to get the best out of each of them, and Cleeves doesn’t do things without having a purpose. However, when a second member of the group is murdered, she also begins to wonder whether secrets in the group’s past may be the key to solving this case.