The Raging Storm by Ann Cleeves - review

Last week I had the pleasure of interviewing Ann Cleeves for Barnes & Noble. There was a very good audience with lots of questions and thank goodness the technology worked a treat. I was a bit nervous beforehand, but once we got going, everything was fine. The reason for the interview was that Ann's new book, The Raging Storm, has just been published. Not to be confused with her last book, The Rising Tide, this is the third in her North Devon series featuring the gay detective Matthew Venn.

The story begins with a sort of 'prodigal returns' scenario, as the celebrity adventurer Jem Rosco arrives back in Greystone (based on a place called Hartland Quay), where he developed his sailcraft. He says he's waiting for someone, but is irritatingly mysterious about who that someone might be. In the second chapter, Mary Ford and her colleagues are called out to perform a rescue in the local lifeboat (the book is dedicated to the RNLI) but what they discover is Jem's dead body.  

Matthew and his team are called in and it soon becomes clear that Jem has been murdered. He wasn't by any means universally popular, and a number of possible murder motives emerge, as do various potential suspects. As ever, the landscape is splendidly evoked and it made me want to go back to Devon again. One slight quirk is that the publishers have included a map of Devon, but this doesn't show the key fictional locations featured in the story, which I found rather odd.

There are some interesting observations in this novel, for instance about social class, and Matthew's religious upbringing again plays a part. Particularly good is the way that Ann examines the nature of celebrity status and charisma. Early on, there's a reference to Dorothy L. Sayers and Golden Age detective fiction and the explanation at the end is one of the most intricate Ann has ever come up with. Early on, Matthew appears to overlook one pretty obvious area of enquiry, and that isn't the only mistake he makes. He's no Lord Peter Wimsey, but dogged perseverance gets him there in the end.