Detective Joe Ashworth, and teen daughter, Jessie, are on
the Metro returning home in a snow storm after attending a
school choir concert at New Castle Cathedral. The Metro is
filled with Christmas shoppers/revelers and no seats are
available. Joe notices an elegant,
attractive, well dressed woman in her 70's, take a recently
vacated seat and he becomes annoyed. He and Jessie must
remain standing, squashed into a corner The lights flicker
as the train
pulls into a station, and an
announcement is made that because of the snow there is
trouble on the line and the train can go no further. The
passengers depart quickly into the foul weather. Jessie
points to the older lady telling her dad she must be
asleep.
She walks over to alert her, but the woman is dead.
Detective Joe
Ashworth, upon examination, discovers she has been fatally
stabbed. He immediately calls the police and his Inspector
to report the crime.
Inspector Vera Stanhope is a larger than life force to be
reckoned
with. She is unattractive, overweight, out of shape,
older, impatient, but renowned for her strong intuition.
The victim is
Margaret Krukowski.
She has lived in the top floor apartment at #1 Harbour
Street for many years. It is a B&B owned by widow and
previous singing star, Kate Dewar and her two teenage
children, Chloe and Ryan. Upon questioning Kate, her
children, and the guests, Margaret is depicted
as a saint, active in church and a volunteer at a women's
shelter for homeless and abused women. She helps with
baking at the B&B and is private person, leading a quiet
life. This opinion is shared by everyone questioned.
But
Vera in her diligent digging, discovers that Margaret is
no
saint and has shocking secrets that have been hidden for
years. When a second woman is murdered in the
neighborhood,
the hunt is on to find the murderer. Vera solves the
crimes the old fashioned way...footwork, following clues,
constantly interviewing anyone who knew the victims, and
working her detective and her assistant hard and without
mercy.
This is the sixth book of crime novels featuring roly-poly
Vera Stanhope, and is a big hit series on British
television,
Vera. I
think Ann Cleeves is a master storyteller, and her
thriller,
HARBOUR STREET, gripped me from start to finish. I
regard
myself as a super sleuth, I followed the clues, but failed
to solve this whodunit. Her ensemble cast of characters
include Vera, her always-eager-to-please fashion plate
assistant, Holly, and Detective Joe, her protegee. They
work hard together to solve two murders. In a town with a
very tight community filled with dark, disturbing secrets,
people are reluctant to speak. They do not trust the
police
and want to protect their own. Ms. Cleeves descriptions of
this quiet fishing town of Mardle, the
seemingly innocent neighborhood of Harbour Street and the
colorful characters that live there is painted brilliantly.
I feel like I was there watching and waiting for the finale
that surprises and has me scurrying for another great read
by Ann Cleeves. Well done and I recommend it to mystery
lovers everywhere.
HARBOUR STREET is the next spellbinding installment
in Ann Cleeves' series of crime novels about Vera Stanhope,
played in the TV detective drama VERA by Brenda
Blethyn.
As the snow falls thickly on Newcastle, the
shouts and laughter of Christmas revelers break the muffled
silence. Detective Joe Ashworth and his daughter Jessie are
swept along in the jostling crowd onto the Metro.
But
when the train is stopped due to the bad weather, and the
other passengers fade into the swirling snow, Jessie
notices
that one lady hasn't left the train: Margaret Krukowski has
been fatally stabbed.
Arriving at the scene, DI Vera
Stanhope is relieved to have an excuse to escape the
holiday
festivities. As she stands on the silent, snow-covered
station platform, Vera feels a familiar buzz of
anticipation, sensing that this will be a complex and
unusual case.
Then, just days later, a second woman
is murdered. Vera knows that to find the key to this new
killing she needs to understand what had been troubling
Margaret so deeply before she died - before another life is
lost. She can feel in her bones that there's a link.
Retracing Margaret's final steps, Vera finds herself
searching deep into the hidden past of this seemingly
innocent neighborhood, led by clues that keep revolving
around one street...
Why are the residents of Harbour
Street so reluctant to speak?
Told with piercing
prose
and a forensic eye, Ann Cleeves' gripping new novel
explores
what happens when a community closes ranks to protect their
own-and at what point silent witnesses become complicit.
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