{"id":7192,"date":"2026-09-22T05:20:22","date_gmt":"2026-09-22T12:20:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=7192"},"modified":"2026-09-22T05:20:22","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T12:20:22","slug":"ann-cleeves-the-dying-light","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/ann-cleeves-the-dying-light\/","title":{"rendered":"Ann Cleeves: The Dying Light"},"content":{"rendered":"

Matthew Venn #4<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Over a forty year writing career, Ann Cleeves has emerged as one of the very best traditional mystery writers around.\u00a0 With three very well regarded series to her credit, Shetland, Vera, and Matthew Venn, she\u2019s achieved something few writers are capable of: creating several discrete casts of characters who differ from each other, yet remain individual and memorable.\u00a0\u00a0 Her latest features Matthew Venn, a gay Detective Inspector in Devon, who, despite being shunned by his religious parents when he lost his faith, now lives very happily with his husband, the chill and patient Jonathan, the two of them comprising one of the nicest couples in mystery fiction.<\/p>\n

Despite this stable relationship Matthew still has his issues.\u00a0 Often anxious and unsure of himself, he compensates with blazing intelligence and a thorough and careful investigating style.\u00a0 He needs these qualities when he and his team catch a heartbreaking case involving the death of two young girls who had come down to a family vacation home for a getaway before beginning their first year at university.\u00a0 Hannah, whose family owns the house, is the daughter of an MP, so there\u2019s big time scrutiny, including massive amounts of press.<\/p>\n

Cleeves, however, keeps the story and the circle of players tight.\u00a0 There is a richly drawn background of family and locals, friends and neighbors, but not a big roster of suspects, creating a golden age balancing act for Cleeves, which she pulls off, keeping the reader guessing until almost the very last chapter. The set up is completely heartbreaking, with the grieving parents of the two girls reacting in different ways, highlighting their lack of connection and sympathy.\u00a0 While the victims were friends, their parents are not, despite their shared grief.<\/p>\n

Matthew and his team patiently interview and cover the investigative ground thoroughly in order to discover just what happened to the two girls and who might be responsible. The depiction of the grieving family and other families in this small, resort area of Devon is beautifully and completely delineated.\u00a0 Out of this mix of pub owners, farm families, different surly teens and the mother of one of the dead girls, Cleeves creates the rich canvas of her story.<\/p>\n

Her books always have the ineffable quality of something unexpected waiting around the corner, with Cleeves having more than enough aces up her authorial sleeve to keep the reader guessing.\u00a0 One of the reasons these books are so resonant is not simply the ingenious resolution of the mystery, but the development of the characters of Matthew and Jonathan.\u00a0 In this instalment, Jonathan deals with a larger personal issue, while Matthew, always unsure about how to properly handle personal interactions, can only remain awkward but loving.<\/p>\n

The story\u2019s d\u00e9nouement is not only heartbreaking, but a true tragedy with many tendrils and victims.\u00a0 The wrap up to Jonathan\u2019s situation is more ambiguous, leaving me even more eager for the next book.\u00a0 —\u00a0Robin Agnew<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Matthew Venn #4 Over a forty year writing career, Ann Cleeves has emerged as one of the very best traditional mystery writers around.\u00a0 With three very well regarded series to her credit, Shetland, Vera, and Matthew Venn, she\u2019s achieved something few writers are capable of: creating several discrete casts of characters who differ from each … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[197,198,1556,199,100,8,1276,2587,1436],"class_list":["post-7192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-ann-cleeves","tag-devon","tag-golden-age-style","tag-matthew-venn","tag-minotaur-books","tag-police","tag-robin-agnew","tag-the-dying-light","tag-traditional-detection"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7192"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7192\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7235,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7192\/revisions\/7235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}