The Dying Light

Two Rivers #4

by Ann Cleeves

The Dying Light is a searing new novel featuring DI Matthew Venn, brimming with energy and taught with claustrophobic tension, as the detective peels back layer upon layer to discover the dark secrets this family is keeping.

A scorching heatwave marks the start of the summer in Devon. Detective Matthew Venn is called in to investigate a puzzling death, when the body of a young woman, Lottie, is found in the swimming pool of a luxurious holiday home. The girl’s best friend, Hannah, whose family owns the house, is missing. The girls had arrived in Devon a few days ahead of the family to celebrate the end of their school exams, and had managed to make waves during their short time there; they disrupted the folk music festival at the neighboring farm, with Lottie posting incendiary videos on social media mocking what she snobbishly considered to be a parochial community.

When further tragedy strikes, Venn and his team begin questioning a community filled with secrets. Hannah’s father, Paul Armstrong, is a rising political star, a fact that quickly draws intense media scrutiny to the case, not least because there are many who would want to take him down. With the summer heat come holidaymakers, and it emerges that some of them may have more connections with the Armstrong family than first thought.

Caught between a powerful family's secrets and a powder keg of local tensions, Venn and his team must navigate a treacherous path. He knows all too well that the real answers lie not in what people say, but in the silence that they keep . . .

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Crime, Mystery Thriller, Procedural, Audiobook, LGBT

384 pages, Hardcover

Expected publication September 29, 2026

About the author

Ann is the author of the books behind ITV's VERA, now in it's third series, and the BBC's SHETLAND, which will be aired in December 2012. Ann's DI Vera Stanhope series of books is set in Northumberland and features the well loved detective along with her partner Joe Ashworth. Ann's Shetland series bring us DI Jimmy Perez, investigating in the mysterious, dark, and beautiful Shetland Islands...


Ann grew up in the country, first in Herefordshire, then in North Devon. Her father was a village school teacher. After dropping out of university she took a number of temporary jobs - child care officer, women's refuge leader, bird observatory cook, auxiliary coastguard - before going back to college and training to be a probation officer.

While she was cooking in the Bird Observatory on Fair Isle, she met her husband Tim, a visiting ornithologist. She was attracted less by the ornithology than the bottle of malt whisky she saw in his rucksack when she showed him his room. Soon after they married, Tim was appointed as warden of Hilbre, a tiny tidal island nature reserve in the Dee Estuary. They were the only residents, there was no mains electricity or water and access to the mainland was at low tide across the shore. If a person's not heavily into birds - and Ann isn't - there's not much to do on Hilbre and that was when she started writing. Her first series of crime novels features the elderly naturalist, George Palmer-Jones. A couple of these books are seriously dreadful.

In 1987 Tim, Ann and their two daughters moved to Northumberland and the north east provides the inspiration for many of her subsequent titles. The girls have both taken up with Geordie lads. In the autumn of 2006, Ann and Tim finally achieved their ambition of moving back to the North East.

For the National Year of Reading, Ann was made reader-in-residence for three library authorities. It came as a revelation that it was possible to get paid for talking to readers about books! She went on to set up reading groups in prisons as part of the Inside Books project, became Cheltenham Literature Festival's first reader-in-residence and still enjoys working with libraries.
Ann Cleeves on stage at the Duncan Lawrie Dagger awards ceremony

Ann's short film for Border TV, Catching Birds, won a Royal Television Society Award. She has twice been short listed for a CWA Dagger Award - once for her short story The Plater, and the following year for the Dagger in the Library award.

In 2006 Ann Cleeves was the first winner of the prestigious Duncan Lawrie Dagger Award of the Crime Writers' Association for Raven Black, the first volume of her Shetland Quartet. The Duncan Lawrie Dagger replaces the CWA's Gold Dagger award, and the winner receives £20,000, making it the world's largest award for crime fiction.

Ann's success was announced at the 2006 Dagger Awards ceremony at the Waldorf Hilton, in London's Aldwych, on Thursday 29 June 2006. She said: "I have never won anything before in my life, so it was a complete shock - but lovely of course.. The evening was relatively relaxing because I'd lost my voice and knew that even if the unexpected happened there was physically no way I could utter a word. So I wouldn't have to give a speech. My editor was deputed to do it!"

The judging panel consisted of Geoff Bradley (non-voting Chair), Lyn Brown MP (a committee member on the London Libraries service), Frances Gray (an academic who writes about and teaches courses on modern crime fiction), Heather O'Donoghue (academic, linguist, crime fiction reviewer for The Times Literary Supplement, and keen reader of all crime fiction) and Barry Forshaw (reviewer and editor of Crime Time magazine).

Ann's books have been translated into sixteen languages. She's a bestseller in Scandinavia and Germany. Her novels sell widely and to critical acclaim in the United States. Raven Black was shortlisted for the Martin Beck award for best translated crime novel in Sweden in 200

Reviews

[Ceecee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Two Rivers series - Matthew Venn #4

The Tides is the North Devon holiday home of government minister Paul Armstrong and it’s where the body of a young woman is found in the swimming pool and from where Paul‘s daughter Hannah goes missing. DI Matthew Venn and his team are called to investigate in the knowledge that all their moves will be heavily scrutinised by the media who will be desperate for answers as well as a scoop. Can the team navigate the secrets and lies and get to the truth before pressure is brought to bear from the Home Office and the investigation is taken out of Matthew’s hands?

I enjoy this latest addition to the Two Rivers series with the storyline building slowly and steadily perhaps as languidly as the heat wave the whole country is experiencing. This pace suits Matthew to perfection, anything else would not be true to his personality and one of the things that Ann Cleeves is very good at, is creating really interesting characters. Matthew fascinates me, his character traits are formed by his past, he’s a quiet, thoughtful and reflective man, certainly dogged by anxiety and doubt, but he’s calm and measured which is always a bonus in a murder inquiry. However, it is fair to say that sometimes his team and the powers that be would prefer a faster pace! Matthew’s husband Jonathan provides the security he needs and there’s a storyline that follows him in this one. All the characters are well portrayed with DS Jen Rafferty being very likeable.

The mystery is good and central to it are the personalities of the two girls at the heart of the mystery and the author allows readers to get to know them and their families as well as the community around the holiday home. The story telling is straightforward, there’s nothing superfluous and it’s engaging, keeping me immersed and vicariously enjoying being in Devon! There are a number of red herrings and blind alleys as well as twists and turns until it arrives at a good ending.

With thanks to NetGalley and especially to Pan Mcmillan for the much appreciated early copy in return for an honest review.

[Kristy]

I adore the Matthew Venn / Two Rivers series for many reasons. One is the fact that Ann Cleeves excels at writing characters, writing people. She delves into the why: what makes people tick and work. Her books may not always be driven by constant action, but you keep reading as each page reveals more about our characters and what and why led them to be killed (or to kill).

And, Matthew Venn is one of my favorite detectives. I love his steady nature that also comes with a quiet, lingering insecurity, making him relatable and human. I love that he's not all ego and brash anger, like so many crime solvers, but intelligence and thoughtfulness. And I love the relationship between him and his husband Jonathan, which is portrayed honestly and lovingly.

This is an excellent mystery, which kept me guessing the entire time. We get a multi-POV story, including Matthew, his colleague Jen, and Catherine, a wealthy woman who has just lost her teenage daughter, Hannah, to an apparent murder. Both Hannah and her friend Lottie are found dead at the family's country home, and it's up to Matthew and team to determine why--with added pressure as Hannah's father is high up in politics.

There's a small cast of characters, and each is well-drawn, often with a potential motive. Cleeves does a good job of playing up the small-town versus big city rift and how it's affected locals in Devon. As with every Venn tale, there's so much more going on than "just the mystery," making it a complex, nuanced tale that will keep you flipping the pages. 4.5 stars.

I received a copy of this book from Netgalley and Minotaur Books in return for an unbiased review. Look for the U.S. version in September 2026!

[Samantha · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have read lots of mysteries/thrillers but never one from Ann Cleeves. This one sounded worth listening to, so I decided it was a good book to start with. It is fourth in a series but worked great as a standalone novel, and I never felt like I was missing background information.

This book is most appropriately be categorized as a police procedural, as the reader follows lead detective Matthew Venn and his team throughout the story. The reader is thrown into the case just as they are, with two dead bodies discovered at the beginning of the book, but the action builds slowly from that point. It is not necessarily suspenseful, but the case is revealed slowly and realistically with people making mistakes and misjudgments throughout.

The mystery and resolution are satisfying if not earth shattering. I didn't suspect the identity of the killer at any point, but it still made sense once it was revealed.

If I had any critique of this novel it would be that I didn't particularly care about any of the characters. With two teenage girls showing up dead, one would expect a lot of emotion and sympathy for those involved - family and those investigating - but I just never got there. I would read another book by the author but don't know if I'll read more of this series.

Side note on the audiobook - generally enjoyable to listen to and the narrator has a pleasant voice, though I did have to laugh at the precision with which English accents are described by class and region. However, our one American couple? They're just American, not New Yorker, Southern, Californian, Mid-Western....you get the idea. There's one flat American accent and that's it, I guess.

Thank you to NetGalley and Minotaur Books for my audiobook copy. Opinions are my own.

[Cindy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The fourth installment in the DI Matthew Venn mystery series finds Matthew and team looking into the mysterious death of a young woman at a luxurious resort following a weekend concert in a small Devon town. There are ties to an MP, Hollywood, and an all-girls school in London. It's a good mystery and a well-narrated audiobook, filled with red herrings that make the solution look almost too simple. The ending is more sad than cathartic. The books are enjoyable, and I will come back to the Two Rivers series again (and again).
My thanks to the author, publisher, @MacmillanAudio, and #NetGalley for early access to the audiobook of #TheDyingLight #TwoRivers for review purposes. Publication date: 29 September 2026.

[Demetri Papadimitropoulos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gratitude, Apparently, Comes With Compound Interest
Ann Cleeves’s “The Dying Light” follows Matthew Venn into a murder case where favors become debts, protection becomes leverage, and even a detective’s sympathy can prove surprisingly expensive.
By Demetris Papadimitropoulos | August 12th, 2026


“Too Much Light” – Tide House, its pool, and one unreadable figure at the threshold sit beneath the scorched colors of Ann Cleeves’s “The Dying Light,” where the abundance of light becomes its own kind of obscurity and seeing clearly proves harder than simply having everything exposed.

Dazzling in the morning sun, Tide House looks like money trying to pass for innocence: white walls, blue pool, sea below, Lundy Island on the horizon. Hannah Armstrong has come to this North Devon second home after her A levels with Lottie Cauldwell, her best friend and, in Hannah’s private vocabulary, her “saviour.” Lottie strips off and dives straight into the pool. Hannah looks toward university and feels something less photogenic. Relief. Soon they will separate. Ann Cleeves plants that contradiction before anyone dies, and “The Dying Light” spends much of its patient investigation asking what a rescue may demand in return.

Early on Monday, Lottie is found dead in that same pool and Hannah has vanished. Hannah’s father, Paul Armstrong, is a fast-rising politician, a former doctor whose expensive coastal retreat sits awkwardly beside his working-class credentials. Before DI Matthew Venn has properly begun, the case is already carrying cameras, political sensitivities and people eager to decide what it means. Then Hannah is found murdered beside the ruined mill below Tide House. Venn and his team have two dead seventeen-year-olds, a weekend music festival full of witnesses and one assumption that will cost them time: surely the two deaths belong to the same killer.


“Soon They Will Separate” – Hannah and Lottie occupy the same sun-struck Tide House yet seem already divided by architecture, distance, and the blue interruption of the pool, turning a beautiful holiday setting into an image of gratitude beginning to feel like confinement.

Mystery novels train us to prize suspicion, but Cleeves is better here on the trouble that begins after suspicion, when an observer decides that a partial reading of somebody is enough. Matthew notices accents, clothes, houses, money, manners, pauses, even whether seventeen-year-old Lottie ought to be called a girl or a woman. His evangelical upbringing has left him alert to social rules he suspects everyone else received in advance. He watches because he does not entirely trust himself to belong. He can register another person’s money and then reprimand himself for having registered it; he can hear performance in Paul’s public ease while worrying that the judgment reveals more about him than Paul. That makes him attentive. It also means his first readings of people can arrive with the quiet authority of fact.

Even the weather behaves this way. The book is full of glare, hard shadows, dried fields, heat haze and water flinging a cloudless sky back at anyone who looks down. Brightness bleaches distinctions instead of clarifying them. Tide House can resemble the Mediterranean and still contain a corpse; across the Brennan farm, objects look painfully sharp while the distance trembles. Cleeves does not keep pointing at the symbolism. The coast simply keeps making the same dry joke: there is such a thing as too much light.

The sentences are as watchful as Matthew. Cleeves favors short-to-medium declaratives, brisk dialogue and little interior revisions, with more interest in the detail that gives a conversation away than in the sentence that asks to be admired: who makes the tea, whose accent thickens under stress, who notices a pub price, who expects deference, who feels guilty for noticing wealth at all. Matthew’s horror of camping, his worry over terminology and his irritation when crime-scene tape is put up upside down keep his moral seriousness human-sized. Occasionally the prose explains what a scene has already made clear; Cleeves can be so conscientious that she seems reluctant to leave without checking whether everyone has their coat.

Readers never receive evidence in a vacuum. Cleeves moves among Matthew, Jen Rafferty, Cath Armstrong, Ross May and others in close third person, and every shift changes what the same facts seem to mean. Cath dislikes Lottie and knows enough about herself to distrust the dislike. Jen can hear when a witness is performing helpfulness. Matthew warms to people whose awkwardness resembles his own. None of them is extravagantly unreliable. They are something more troublesome for a detective: sensible people with reasons to see selectively.

In Hannah and Lottie’s friendship, the recurring transaction is the need to be needed. Hannah believes Lottie rescued her socially and later protected her after a terrible accident involving their friend Elizabeth Kinzalow. Lottie possesses a video that could be made to incriminate Hannah, and her decision not to release it has long looked like loyalty. Gradually Hannah sees the other half of the bargain. Lottie has kept the secret, but she has also kept Hannah inside it. A favor becomes a debt; the debt quietly acquires compound interest.

Protection takes a more maternal form with Tessa and Bob Brennan, who love their son Jake enough to begin shielding him from consequences he has earned. Cath starts to wonder whether part of her loyalty to Paul comes from how necessary his ambitions, compromises and crises have allowed her to feel. Jonathan Venn, searching for the birth mother who relinquished him, imagines someone whose deprivation might explain her choice and perhaps leave room for him to help. These relationships are not equivalent. What connects them is the little extra claim that can hide inside care: because I have done this for you, I know what you need from me.

As Lottie comes into focus, she never settles comfortably into villainy. She is magnetic, manipulative, performative, casually cruel and finally capable of lethal violence. She is also frightened, lonely and newly aware that Hannah is escaping her orbit. Jake genuinely loves Hannah; his grief is not performance. Yet after seeing Lottie kill her, he follows Lottie to Tide House, pushes her into the pool and, once the consequences become clear, does not save her. Cleeves gives both characters enough humanity to complicate judgment without asking complication to erase responsibility.

Precisely because Matthew understands Jake, he misreads him. Sitting beside the younger man in a bird hide, he hears about Jake’s breakdown at university, recognizes shame and fragility, and sees grief that is plainly real. Matthew recognizes something of himself there. Then he makes the subtler mistake: he treats recognition as proof of innocence. Sympathy can correct prejudice and still create its own blind spot once the detective decides that understanding one part of a person has settled the rest.


“What Sympathy Misses” – Matthew and Jake sit quietly beside one another in the muted enclosure of a bird hide, close enough for recognition and still far enough for error, as the warmer colors recede and olive, charcoal, and dry summer earth hold the scene in a gentler, more deceptive stillness.

A camera offers no escape from that problem. Lottie edits footage from MillsFest until people enjoying themselves look ridiculous. Her followers mistake prolonged watching for intimacy. Paul maintains a polished public version of his family; the Kinzalows arrive in Devon carrying their own settled account of what happened to Elizabeth. Most tellingly, the old “Three Furies” recording never changes while its meaning repeatedly does: evidence of an accident, potential evidence against Hannah, proof that Lottie protected her, finally the private collateral that lets Lottie demand gratitude. A true image can still be recruited into a false story.

Despite that precision, the middle widens the circle of suspicion faster than the central drama can absorb it. Political enemies, rumors about Paul’s early career, resentment toward second homes, the Kinzalows’ concealed purpose in Devon, Daniel Miller’s evasions and the Hoopers all require investigative time. Some of this gives Millscombe the friction of a place where wealth, tourism and local grievance share the same narrow roads. Some mostly keeps suspicion moving. Police work plausibly produces dead ends; a novel still has to decide how long to stand in them. The eventual explanation is more intimate, and more compelling, than several of the routes built to reach it.

In the end, the case contracts to three girls and one recording. Years earlier, Hannah, Lottie and Elizabeth styled themselves the “Three Furies.” During a drunken dare beside a railway embankment, Hannah tried to stop Elizabeth from doing something dangerous, slipped and accidentally knocked her over the edge, leaving Elizabeth severely brain-injured. Lottie filmed it. Hannah spends years believing Lottie’s silence saved her. By the final weekend she sees the bargain clearly: the person who holds the evidence also controls when forgiveness may be withdrawn.


“Private Collateral” – the old “Three Furies” recording emerges from black-maroon and crimson wash as something at once remembered, preserved, and possessed, with one small bright pulse sharpening the moment when protection reveals the leverage hidden inside it.

Moments after Hannah acts on that knowledge, she is dead. She confronts Lottie near the ruined mill, says she will tell the Kinzalows what really happened and ends the friendship. Lottie hurls a rock at her as she walks away. Jake, who has secretly followed Hannah, witnesses the killing and pursues Lottie to Tide House, where he pushes her into the pool. She strikes her head. He sees enough to know she is in danger and leaves her there. The sequence is less a twist than a rearrangement of responsibility. What had looked like a symmetrical double murder turns out to be something more disorderly: one young woman kills another, and grief gives somebody else permission to make a terrible choice.


“After the Mill” – the ruined mill, empty path, and disturbed summer ground carry the weight of Hannah’s death without showing it, allowing stone, scrub, shadow, and earth to register the irreversible violence more powerfully through absence than spectacle.

If the ending has a weakness, it is that Venn does not quite deduce it. Jake supplies much of the missing morning through confession, so his account explains the people more persuasively than the investigation explains the crime. Cleeves has planted the emotional logic well enough that the confession feels earned, but the mechanism does not snap into place with the same force. Readers who come to her for process, place and people may not mind the trade; anyone waiting for every earlier detail to click shut will notice the softer latch.

The disappearance of Hannah’s younger brother Alex jolts the book out of retrospective inquiry. Alex recognizes Hannah’s distinctive phone in Jake’s bedroom. Jake panics and takes him back toward the farm. Suddenly there is a living child to find, and the Brennans, whom Matthew has read sympathetically, have to be looked at again. Alex himself mostly believes he is having an adventure, which makes the episode stranger rather than safer. Jake’s evasions accumulate until parental love, frightened into action, nearly ends with Bob Brennan holding a shotgun.

Resolution gives nobody much pleasure in being right. Jen resists Paul’s urge to call Lottie simply evil, and Matthew understands why. But the book’s generosity creates its own danger. Compassion turns mushy if every distinction is softened. Hannah is trying to tell the truth when Lottie kills her. Lottie’s attack and Jake’s later refusal to help her belong to different degrees of responsibility. Cleeves usually keeps those differences visible, though her insistence that there are no convenient monsters occasionally asks generosity to do work that sharper judgment should retain.

Only after the murder case is solved does Cleeves move to the relationship that keeps her generosity honest. Jonathan has finally met Ellen, the birth mother he has spent years imagining. He expected deprivation, abandonment, perhaps a woman forced by circumstance to give him up. Instead he finds someone privileged, independent and capable of saying that she did not want to raise a child. Jonathan is furious. Matthew hears what lies beneath the anger: Ellen has failed to play the part Jonathan wrote for her before they met. The parallel is not that Jonathan resembles Lottie, but that the habit is everywhere – the urge to finish another person’s story before they do.

Put beside Tana French’s “The Searcher,” “The Dying Light” shares a suspicion of observers who mistake attentiveness for authority. French is more sensuously interior and stylistically elastic; Cleeves reaches the problem by the steadier road of police procedure, kitchens, interviews and awkward cups of coffee. Matthew’s marriage matters here because the case does not simply supply a lesson for his next interrogation. It follows him home, where professional habits look less like virtues.

Other pressures crowd the edges of the case without demanding separate essays: the heatwave, second homes, political image-making, phones. Tide House is both a family refuge and a reminder that beautiful places can be bought by people who scarcely live in them. Paul’s success complicates the political story he tells about himself. Lottie’s phone can preserve evidence and manufacture context with equal efficiency. Cleeves is not trying to explain modern Britain in miniature. She is more exact about the smaller temptation these pressures intensify: believing that access to somebody’s image, history or pain gives you the right to complete the picture.

Under the interviews, searches and false trails lies the same ordinary trespass. Because I saved you, you owe me. Because I love you, I may protect you from consequence. Because I recognize your pain, I know what you are capable of. Because I have watched you, I know who you are. Again and again, interpretation becomes jurisdiction. The phrase sounds severe until one remembers how ordinary the acts are: a parent covering for a son, a friend keeping a video, a husband inventing a mother, a detective trusting his sympathy.

Looking at the whole, I land at 81/100, or 4/5 stars. The middle spends too long testing explanations the ending does not need, the prose occasionally annotates scenes that have already made their point, and the final reconstruction depends more on confession than on deductive elegance. But those limits do not cancel the book’s better work. What stays with me is not simply who killed whom, but why Matthew failed to see it: he was wrong for reasons he considered humane, which is a more unsettling mistake than ordinary blindness.

Only at the end does the light soften. “The Dying Light” begins with Tide House so white in the morning sun that it hurts to look at and closes with Matthew learning that seeing clearly may require less confidence, not more. Cleeves does not ask him to stop judging; a detective cannot. She asks him to leave the verdict slightly ajar.


“The Verdict Slightly Ajar” – in softened evening light, Matthew and Jonathan share a domestic room without quite closing the distance between them, as the cover-derived blaze settles into maroon, amber, cream, and a little cooling shadow, leaving understanding gentler but deliberately unfinished.


Compositional thumbnails for “Too Much Light”


Pencil underdrawing for “Too Much Light”


Light and value study for “Too Much Light”


First-wash stage of “Too Much Light”


Cover-palette proportion study for “Too Much Light”


Border studies for “Too Much Light”


Threshold figure study for “Too Much Light”


Alternative dust-jacket study for “The Dying Light”


Proportional wash map for “Too Much Light”


Ann Cleeves, author of “The Dying Light” – a literary watercolor portrait places Cleeves inside the scorched coastal light, pale architecture, dark vegetation, and cover-derived colors of the review’s visual world, shielding her eyes from the very glare her Matthew Venn mystery turns into a problem of perception.

All watercolor illustrations by Demetris Papadimitropoulos.
Watercolors are done on 140lb vellum and then scanned into the computer using an Epson scanner. From there, they are finalized in Procreate. All art and opinions are my own.

[Bonny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ann Cleeves continues to prove why she is one of the most reliable voices in contemporary crime fiction with The Dying Light, a strong fourth installment in the Matthew Venn series. Set against a sweltering Devon heatwave, the novel combines a compelling mystery with the author's trademark exploration of family dynamics, community tensions, and the secrets people keep hidden behind carefully constructed facades.

The plot begins with the death of a young woman found in a swimming pool and the disappearance of her best friend, but what initially appears straightforward quickly grows more complex. Cleeves expertly peels back layer after layer of deception, drawing connections between local residents, holidaymakers, politics, social media, and long-buried grievances. The oppressive summer heat and the claustrophobic atmosphere of a small community under scrutiny create a palpable sense of tension throughout.

What continues to elevate this series for me, however, is Matthew Venn himself. In this novel, he feels increasingly confident and mature in his role as a detective. He has grown into his leadership position, trusting his team while still displaying the empathy and thoughtful observation that make him such an effective investigator. Rather than relying on dramatic breakthroughs, Venn solves cases by listening carefully and noticing what others overlook.

I also appreciated the continued development of his personal life. His relationship with his husband, Jonathan, remains one of the series' strengths. Their marriage feels authentic and lived-in, providing warmth and stability amid the darkness of the investigation. Cleeves portrays their partnership with a quiet tenderness and respect that adds emotional depth without overwhelming the mystery.

Equally compelling is Matthew's still-fractured relationship with his mother. The wounds left by his upbringing in the strict religious community that rejected him have not magically healed, and the novel continues to explore the complicated mixture of love, resentment, obligation, and grief that defines their connection. These scenes add a layer of emotional realism that makes Matthew far more than just another detective protagonist.

My only reason for not rating the book higher is that some sections felt a bit slower than necessary, particularly in the middle, as the investigation broadened and the cast of suspects expanded. Still, the payoff is satisfying, and the resolution feels both believable and emotionally resonant.

The Dying Light is a thoughtful, character-driven mystery that balances an intricate plot with genuine emotional insight. Fans of the series will enjoy seeing Matthew Venn continue to grow both professionally and personally, while newcomers will find a well-crafted crime novel that stands comfortably on its own. I am anxiously looking forward to the next book in the series. Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin' Press for providing me with a copy of this book. It will be published on September 29, 2026.

[Robin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quietly, over forty years of writing, Ann Cleeves has become simply one of the very best traditional mystery writers in existence. With three very well regarded series to her credit – Shetland, Vera, and this new Matthew Venn series – she’s achieved something few writers achieve. To have three series that are each so richly layered and yet differ from each other is stunning. Her latest series features Matthew Venn, a gay Detective Inspector in Devon. He’s been raised by religious parents who shunned him when he lost his faith, and he lives very happily with his husband, the chill and patient Jonathan. They are one of the nicest couples in mystery fiction.

Matthew still has his issues. He’s often anxious and unsure of himself and makes up for it with blazing intelligence and a thorough and careful investigation style. All of these qualities are called upon when he and his team catch a heartbreaking case involving the death of two young girls, who were just about to head to university. They’d come down to the family home of one of them for a getaway before the school year began. Hannah, whose family owns the Devon vacation home, is the daughter of an MP, so there’s all kinds of scrutiny, including massive amounts of press.

Cleeves, however, keeps the story and the players in it tight. There is a richly drawn background of family and locals, friends and neighbors, but there aren’t so many possibilities to find a guilty party. It’s a golden age balancing act on Cleeves’ part to keep the reader guessing until almost the very last chapter. The situation is completely heartbreaking and the grieving parents of the two girls react in different ways, which also highlights their lack of connection and friendship. The girls were friends, the parents were not.

Matthew and his team patiently interview and turn over rocks in a thorough way to discover just what happened to the two girls and who might be responsible for their deaths. The depiction of the grieving family and of other families in this small, resort area of Devon are beautifully and completely delineated. There are pub owners, farm families, different surly teens, and the mother of one of the dead girls. Out of this Cleeves creates a rich matrix for her story.

Her books always have the quality of something simmering under the surface, and for the reader she has plenty of tricks up her authorial sleeve to keep you guessing. One of these reasons these books are so resonant are not just the mysteries but the characters of Matthew and Jonathan. In this book Jonathan is dealing with a larger personal issue, and Matthew, always unsure about how to properly handle personal interaction, is awkward but loving.

The wrap up to the mystery is not only heartbreaking but a true tragedy with many tendrils and victims. The wrap up to Jonathan’s situation is more ambiguous. The fine storytelling and the magnificent characters already have me eager for the next book.

[Ryo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received a copy of this book for free in a Goodreads giveaway.

This is the fourth in a series involving Detective Matthew Venn, and though I hadn't read the previous three, it was easy enough to follow along with this one. Interesting mystery that immediately introduces a dead girl and a missing one, and Detective Venn and his team have to solve the mystery of her death and find the missing girl as well. The local village has a cast of interesting characters, many of which are plausible suspects, and it kept me guessing until the end with a bunch of red herrings. There's some personal drama going on in Venn's life that perhaps I would have found more interesting had I read the previous books in the series, but in this one, it felt like a distraction that just kept Venn away from the action at certain times, and it also made the ending feel a bit awkward.

The dead girl is Lottie Cauldwell, an aspiring swimmer who's come to a fancy holiday home with her friend, Hannah Armstrong. Hannah has gone missing, and her family owns the fancy house, her father being a famous politician. There was a local music festival that happened the weekend before their deaths, and it was organized by a family running a local farm, which adds more suspects to the pool. The setup is done well, with the discovery of the body happening immediately, and the action picks up quickly. The village and its various inhabitants are described well, creating a bunch of plausible suspects for the crimes. Family secrets are unearthed as the investigation continues, and the revelations come at a fairly good pace, though perhaps sagging a bit in the middle.

Venn has some personal drama on the side when his husband, Jonathan, decides to contact his birth mother, and this creates a bunch of distractions over the course of the book. It seemed like his personal affairs kept Venn away from his job right when important things were happening, which just seemed to drag out the plot rather than create interesting tension. The ending also involves Jonathan's personal issues and leaves the book on a somewhat ambiguous note, rather than ending with the resolution of the crimes, and it felt like an awkward, tacked-on ending. There's also a bunch of times when Venn makes assumptions that turn out to be wrong later. Though he does acknowledge this later on, it happens quite a lot, and it seems to drag out the plot unnecessarily, though I suppose it does humanize Venn a bit.

It's a well-constructed mystery, with the setting and the setup to the crime done well, and pretty good pacing throughout, except maybe in the middle parts. I just wish that Venn didn't have personal drama distracting him just to drag out the plot, though it does help develop his character.

[Barbara Schultz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Title: The Dying Light
Series: Two Rivers -Detective Mathew Venn Novel #4
Author: Ann Cleaves
Format: 🎧
Narrator; Jack Holden
Genre: Mystery Thriller
Publisher: Macmillan Audio – Minotaur Books
Pub Date: September 29, 2026
My Rating: 4.4 Stars
Pages: 384

This is my tenth Ann Cleeves thriller. Although my favorite series has been ‘The ‘Detective Vera Stanhope’ series- this is a close tie!
This is Book #4 in the ‘Two Rivers’ series. I read the other three stories and like Detective Venn and was looking forward to this his next adventure. In Book #1 we were introduced to North Devon, where there are two rivers that converge before entering sea. Story started with Matthew Venn standing outside the strict evangelical church in which he grew-up with love but left the strict evangelical community and lost connection with his family. He found a family connection with when he joined the police force but It wasn’t until he found Jonathan that his life finally had a purpose.

In the story Detective Matthew Venn is called in to investigate a puzzling death, when the body of a young woman was found dead. Lottie Cauldwell, a bright, Oxford bound student as well as a popular influencer was staying at a holiday home with her friend, Hannah Armstrong, whose family owns the home. Lottie and Hannah, both aged seventeen, had just finished their A Levels and arrived at the vacation home before Hannah’s family. reward.
Hannah’s father, Paul Armstrong, is a rising political star, so draws media scrutiny to the case, he is a controversial politician and he certainly has enemies.
The next morning Hannah’s body was found down by the mill-she had been murdered.
It was believed that Lottie’s death was an accident. But the autopsy shows a trauma to her heard and the speculation is she was pushed.

The story kept me curious. As I read on and get to know both the girls as well as their families. It appears Lottie is not the sweet girl I thought. She can be mean and although she has a large social media following she is not well liked by those who really know her.

While investigating the case-DI Matthew Venn and his core team, DS Jen Rafferty and DC Ross find out that the girls tried and failed to get a drink at the local pub. But were successful at the two-day music festival at a local farm.
Lottie was last seen at the end of the festival and Hannah last seen the following morning, having spent the night at the farm.
There are many suspects, but none with a clear motive.

Seems to slow down a bit but the ending was great!

I want to thank NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for another great Ann Cleeves/ DI Matthew Venn thriller!
Publishing Release Date September 29, 2026.

[Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Disclaimer: I received an ARC via Netgalley.

While the adaption of the first book of this series, has not resulted in the full multi season series that is as popular as Vera and Shetland, Two Rivers is actually my favorite Cleves series.

Matthew has his issues, but they are, if not everybody issues, common ones. True, being raised in a cult perhaps is not common, but the family issues and lack of social security are something that speaks to many people. He also starts the series, and continues to be in the series, a happy, if insecure married man. The lack of a tragic back story is comforting. If Vera is the mother detective whose calling you pet has you warned, Matthew is the elder brother who you do not want to be quietly disappointed in you.

This outing finds Matthew and co dealing with the fates of two seventeen-year-old girls, one of whom is the daughter of a rising political star. Both Jen and Ross are back. Ross, in fact, has grown as character becoming more than the seeming entitled young man, he was at the start of the series. There is a wonderful scene of Ross channeling both Jen and Matthew, as well as scene where Jen and by extension sees a possible reason for how Ross was at the start of the series.

It is too Cleves credit that she never takes the eye off the fact that it is a personal tragedy for the families involved. Cleeves takes the time to detail the families and the various drives and ambitions that each have. All of this makes for a compelling and engrossing mystery that addresses a variety of issues, including the tensions between old-timers and newcomers in smaller villages and towns. While Cleeves makes good use of blind alleys and other wrong turnings, nothing feels forced or contrived. The whole mystery and its solution have a sense of “could very well happen” about it. While some mysteries and fiction read as if cause driven, sometimes to the point of the reader feeling like they are being beaten over the head with a stick to get the lesson – that is not the case here. There are themes for sure, but Cleeves, like Matthew, lets the reader find their own way. If there is a lesson, it’s very lightly given.

The mystery in some ways mirrors what is going on in Matthew’s private life as he supports Johnathan, who is searching for his birthplace mother. That plot point is given something of a resolution but also shows that Jen and Ross are not the only ones growing for the better. Part of what makes this series work is that Matthew, despite his non-standard religious upbringing, is very much an everyman in every way that truly matters

[Paperbacked Otter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Was it her? Was it him? Was it them? Ann Cleeves, for me, is a master at keeping her reader guessing up until the reveal of who-dunnit. Loving the first three novels in this series, I was excited for her fourth installment in Two Rivers, and it did not disappoint.

With each new novel in the series, Cleeves provides us with a more in-depth understanding of her recurring characters. I truly enjoy getting to know Matthew Venn and how his relationships develop between his husband, Jonathan, and his co-workers, Jen and Ross. With each new novel, Cleeves offers more background into the personal lives for each of these characters. Getting more insight into what drives each character makes the story more relatable; thus, the lure into the detective plot to solve the murder. Cleeves is not about action, but more about the purposeful examination of clues as to the many possibilities of who committed the crimes. All three detectives are given a voice in the solve, and I enjoy getting the different perspectives on the possible suspects.

The novel begins with the murder of Lottie, a spoiled and entitled young woman, who is found in the pool of her friend Hannah's family vacation home. The two friends are there to celebrate the end of the school year. One death turns into two, when Hannah is also found dead on the beach. Venn and his team are put on the case that will undoubtedly be heavily covered by the media, due to Hannah's father being a government minister, thus putting more pressure on Venn to solve the murders quickly.

The story unfolds with a quiet buildup mirroring Venn's own style and low key personality. Venn is not one to rush into decisions or conclusions; instead he is reflective, though at times his personal experiences can lead to judgements about others which can cloud the processing of information. The investigation revolves around not only family dynamics, but also spotlights many current social issues. The two combined create tension in the story as we begin to delve into the families involved in the case. These issues are also seen in the tension generated in the secondary plot of Matthew and Jonathan's relationship and their interactions with their own families.

As always there are a plethora of suspects as well as twists and turns. I found myself surprised by the ending, and yet it felt like the most logical and realistic conclusion. I look forward to getting to know Venn and company and solving their next mystery, all while getting to kow them even better.

Thank you NetGalley for an ARC in return for an honest review.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

We're swimming in the Sea of Red Herrings.

Just how we like 'em.

The Dying Light is the fourth book in the Two Rivers Series. It can be read well as a standalone, but you'll probably find yourself pulled into searching out the previous books. It features the main character of DI Matthew Venn who lives with his husband, Jonathan, in the Devon area. Matthew has a very knotted background whose parents brought him up in a highly restrictive religious setting. He was eventually cast out by its members. Matthew has deep wounds from his previous life.

But when it comes to detectives, Matthew is top-notch. He has established a great team with DS Jen Rafferty and DC Ross May. Their combined flawed personalities open them up to being simply human and viewing life with open minds. They work especially well together thanks to the direction of Matthew.

Even in the quietest of settings, tragedy can gain access. The bodies of two seventeen year old girls are found. Hannah's family owned the country home and she and her best friend, Lottie, arrived earlier before the family. Lottie's body was found floating in the pool and Hannah's body was found on a path to the sea. A shocking discovery during the height of the Summer season.

Ann Cleeves is well known for her knotted storylines. She doesn't give in to easy access. We'll have plenty of those red herrings swimming alongside us throughout this one. And just who would murder not one but two girls in such an unpopulated area?

Hannah's father is a well known politician with enemies in the wings. Lottie has irritated plenty of others with her texts and irritating videos. There's also an American couple staying for the folk music festival who have questionable backgrounds. Also, line up a bartender who had his eyes on Lottie. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Ann Cleeves' mysteries focus on the trial-and-error method of detective work. She implements the art of questioning and interviewing of the locals and possible suspects. Matthew is an ace at that. He has an eye for the unseen and the unexpected. But this time, Matthew is perplexed himself. The actions don't simply fit into the scheme of things. Have patience with this one as Matthew turns over every stone in the process. The ending is quite shocking and with a heavy tone of sadness. The Dying Light is a true journey into what is at the core of human nature.

I received a copy of this book through NetGalley for an honest review. My thanks to Minotaur Books and to the talented Ann Cleeves for the opportunity.

[Mana · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read The Dying Light because Ann Cleeves doesn't feel the need to shout to get a point across. She’s consistent, and being back in North Devon with Matthew Venn felt right. The setup is almost annoyingly relevant: a dead woman in a fancy pool, a heatwave making everyone snap at each other, and a missing friend. Adding a rising politician who owns the place and a music festival that brought "outsiders" into the mix creates a mess that feels real. Venn is the only one who can untangle it, mostly because his religious upbringing taught him exactly how much people can hide in their silence.

Venn isn't your typical cliché. He isn't the alcoholic detective with a grudge; he’s just a man trying to be honest about his marriage and his past. His team, especially Jen Rafferty, works as a blunt contrast to his quiet, methodical style. The people in this town don't feel like cardboard suspects. They have histories and grudges that go back decades, and the heatwave bakes those secrets out of them. It’s a sharp look at how a landscape actually shapes the people trapped in it.

I liked how Cleeves handles the gap between the powerful and the invisible. When a political career is used as a shield, a death at a festival is just a PR nightmare for some but a total tragedy for everyone else. The writing is lean. It skips the decorative filler you usually find in police procedurals and focuses on the physical heat and the weight of what isn't being said. The tone is observational, a bit cynical, and fits the Devon coast perfectly.

The pacing is very deliberate, and I’ll admit I wanted the middle to move faster. Cleeves likes to linger, and while the atmosphere is thick, I sometimes wanted the investigation to stop looking at the scenery and start knocking on doors. But her skill is in those quiet moments. She makes a conversation over tea feel more dangerous than a high-speed chase. The ending doesn't offer any cheap miracles; it leaves you feeling a bit unsettled, which is exactly the point.

This book is a reminder that Cleeves is the standard for a reason. She knows the deadliest truths are whispered, not shouted. It respects your intelligence and avoids the flashy tricks that usually ruin the genre. If you want a story that captures the mood of a community under real pressure, this is as good as it gets.

[Annie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Originally posted on my blog Nonstop Reader.

The Heron's Cry is the fourth Matthew Venn procedural murder mystery by Ann Cleeves. Due out 29th Sept 2026 from Macmillan on their Minotaur imprint, it's 384 pages and will be available in hardcover, audio, and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links throughout.

This is another beautifully written mystery set in North Devon and featuring Detective Matthew Venn, a cerebral and solemnly intelligent investigator tasked with unraveling the tragic deaths of two young women at a very high-end summer home. The pacing of the investigation is unhurried and the characters built up so well and in such detail that they live and breathe. The secondary characters are carefully and completely delineated and distinct. Even Lucy Braddick from the earlier books in the series is included tangentially in this book as well. It really was a delight to read.

Although it's the fourth book in the series, it works very well as a standalone. This book is also quite intricately plotted, but there aren't any major spoilers if they're read out of order. The denouement and resolution were exciting and well crafted, although melancholy.

The language is rough in places (R-rated), and there are some blood/gore descriptions on page.

The unabridged audiobook has a run time of 10 hours 48 minutes, and is expertly read by series narrator Jack Holden. He has a pleasantly nuanced voice and manages numerous characters with widely divergent accents (and ages, and both sexes) impressively well. One of the main characters is from Liverpool, the secondary characters are varied and have accents from Scotland to the Southwest and points in between, and he manages all of them with expertise and precision. Sound quality and production values are high throughout.

Four and a half stars. It would be an excellent choice for public or home library acquisition, as well as a series binge or buddy read.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

[Denis Wheller · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hannah and BFF Lottie spend a few days at Hannah’s holiday home before her family arrive. On arrival they find Lottie dead and Hannah missing. Hannah’s father is a Government Minister tipped as a future PM, so the police are quickly on the scene, in the form of DI Matthew Venn and his core team, DS Jen Rafferty and DC Ross May. The holiday home is in North Devon and this local team, although highly regarded, will be under scrutiny from Senior officers and the Home Office because of the political impact. The two girls, both aged seventeen, had just finished their A Levels and had been afforded this freedom from parental supervision as a reward. They had tried and failed to get a drink at the local Inn, but had more success at the two day music festival organised by the neighbouring farm, which also runs a Glamping operation. Lottie was last seen at the end of the festival and Hannah last seen the following morning, having spent the night at the farm. Suspects galore, but none with a really clear motive, and all with reasonable alibis. Venn is a slow, methodical detective, with a rather complicated background; rejected from the cultish sect in which he was raised, partly for apostasy and partly because he is homosexual. Married to Jonathan, but with insecurity issues he is concerned because the latter is planning to meet with his birth mother. Will this interfere with his deductive skills?
This is the fourth in a series but can be read as a standalone, because there is no relevant connection with the earlier cases except Venn and his team. The story is well constructed and well written, a murder-mystery but not a thriller, slow paced, because Venn is slow paced, his domestic issue is a drag, there is a lot of traversing and re-traversing of the same space, talking to the same people, there is implied pressure on the team to resolve the case quickly or lose it, but this doesn’t spur things along. The resolution is logical, the killer deducible, but even this stage is rather pedestrian. So it’s a solid, safe, police procedural, with a reasonable plot. Gentle might be a fair definition.
I would like to thank NetGalley, the publishers and the author for providing me with a draft proof copy for the purpose of this review.

[Robert Poor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Typically, in a procedural sort of crime novel, my maximum rating is four stars out of five, because I reserve five-star reviews for novels that attempt profundity beyond a mere story arc. Looking back I've only given five-star reviews to a very few crime novels, mostly by Tana French. But thinking about Ann Cleeves' "The Dying Light," I'm not sure what more any reader could ask for in a crime novel. The characters here are richly observed and, in particular, the main characters have now been with us through the entire Two Rivers series, so they have become friends of ours, almost family. The locations feel well lived in, almost like our own hometowns.

In "The Dying Light," DI Matthew Venn is back, along with his sweet and supportive husband Jonathan, his detective colleagues Jen Rafferty and young Ross May. Their relationships have deepened, matured. Even Matthew, who is still recovering from his sheltered childhood in the Brethren, seems a bit more comfortable in his own skin, although Jonathan's search for his biological mother knocks Matthew a bit off-balance.

The plot of "The Dying Light" is as twisty as anything Ann Cleeves has written. Detective Venn investigates the drowning of a young woman, Lottie, at Tide House, a luxurious North Devon holiday property. It is a puzzling death, with the girl's body found in the swimming pool. The girl’s best friend, Hannah, whose family owns the house, is missing and later found dead in the nearby woods with a fractured skull. The girls had arrived a few days earlier to celebrate the end of school exams, and had managed to make trouble during their brief time there: they disrupted a laid-back folk music festival at a neighboring farm and posted deceptively negative videos on social media about the event.

The family of the dead girls are interestingly wealthy and powerful, one father is an MP and the other a successful Hollywood director.

If you have enjoyed the other novels in the Two Rivers series, you will enjoy this one too. And if you haven't read them, this novel will read well as a stand-alone. Enjoyable for Ann Cleeves fans and newbies alike.

Thank you to NetGalley for the Advanced Readers Copy of "The Dying Light," which is expected to be published this fall.

[Christina · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a strong addition to the Two Rivers series featuring Matthew Venn.
I enjoyed the plot of the first novel a great deal, where a seemingly inexplicable set of events ultimately had a simple and entirely believable explanation (and I cannot resist observing here that the logic of it was utterly mutilated by the plot changes made for the television adaptation). However, this story, with a completely different mystery at its heart, is every bit its equal in both apparent complexity and the credibility of its solution. Ann Cleeves has a real knack for constructing mysteries that seem impossibly tangled until the final pieces fall into place - then suddenly everything makes perfect sense.
After finishing their final term at school, two privileged and entitled young women plan to spend a carefree weekend in their family's luxurious second home before their parents arrive for the rest of the summer. Tragically, first one and then the other is found dead in separate locations, with no obvious clues to explain what happened or why.
Set during a scorching hot summer - not unlike the one we are experiencing right now - the novel provides an extreme contrast with its predecessor, where the weather itself was a major obstacle to the investigation. Yet, for all the sunny charm of the setting, there are sinister undercurrents, and secrets that several of the families involved are determined to keep hidden.
Alongside the main investigation are a couple of engaging subplots. We see Matthew's normally outgoing husband, Jonathan, uncharacteristically unsettled by the prospect of meeting his birth mother, and by the unexpected nature of what he discovers - both about her and about himself.

I love the Devonshire setting in these books, particularly the area around Barnstaple. It reminds me of childhood holidays on a friend's farm, at a time when North Devon could genuinely be described as unspoilt, and second homes were still relatively uncommon. I haven't been back nearly so often in recent years, but I remember how much more accessible it became as car ownership became the norm for so many families.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ann Cleeves’ The Dying Light features Detective Inspector Matthew Venn’s second outing as Senior Investigating Officer on a murder case. This time, two young women are discovered dead within a few hours on the grounds of the Tide House at Millscombe in North Devon. One is Lottie — Charlotte Cauldwell —, ”super-cool, with her place at St. Hilda’s, Oxford, and her model good looks.” She’s seventeen, cruel, and cunning. The other is Hilda Armstrong, also seventeen, and hoping for admission into the lesser Exeter. Hannah was the daughter of Paul Armstrong, ”already a junior minister and tipped for stardom, perhaps the highest office in the land.”. Tide House is the Armstrongs’ ”fancy holiday home”. The case receives widespread media coverage and attention from the Home Office.

Venn’s now a more experienced DI and SIO than when we were introduced to him in The Long Call. He’s grown into his roles, more trusting of his intuition, and more skilled at managing his subordinates, Sergeant Jen Rafferty and Constable Ross May. Venn, a local boy himself, must navigate the treacherous cross currents of between the newcomers to North Devon — wealthy vacationers and second home owners — and locals.

Against the backdrop of a complex double murder investigation, Venn must deal with his own life. His long-time partner and to-be husband, Jonathan, wants to locate his birth mother. Venn tries to support him, travels with him to his meeting with her, and empathizes with his shock and disappointment after meeting her.

The Matthew Venn of The Dying Light holds more promise than the Matthew Venn of The Long Call. Despite Venn’s buttoned up persona, Cleeves makes him more appealing by emphasizing his insecurities as a DI, SIO, and romantic partner. He’s less tepid and more interesting. The Dying Light, Ann Cleeves’ second novel in her Matthew Venn series, makes us eager to read more of Venn, Rafferty, and May.

4.5 stars

I would like to thank NetGalley and Minotaur Books for providing me with this advanced reader’s copy.

[BookwormishMe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ann Cleeves mentions in her acknowledgments that she’s been a published author for four decades. Four decades!!! I feel as though I should have been reading her novels long ago. She is a master of mystery and suspense. This latest novel in the Matthew Venn series is excellent.

Matthew’s personal life is, as always, taking a backseat to his work. This time it is the unexpected deaths of two young women who have just finished their A levels and are off to university. Hannah is the daughter of a minister in the Health Department. Lottie is her longtime friend whose father is a director in Los Angeles and her mother a talent agent in London. They have arrived at Hannah’s family’s summer home in North Devon a few days before Hannah’s family is set to join them. Hannah wants to spend some last days with Lottie before they part for university. Also, Hannah wants to spend time with her boyfriend Jake who lives on an adjacent farm.

When Hannah’s family arrives at the home, they find Lottie floating in the pool and Hannah missing. Matthew Venn is dispatched to the location to take the lead on finding Hannah and solving the death of Lottie. It’s a small community, and some of the locals are not keen on outsiders. As the days pass, more info emerges about the women’s behavior while on holiday and what it means for the locals.

I truly enjoy the DI Venn novels. He’s kind of an uptight guy that is mellowed by his husband, Jonathan. This novel involves Jonathan in many ways, as well as the community in which they live. Social media is touched upon, with Lottie thinking herself an influencer. One of my favorite things about these novels is my inability to pin the crimes on one person. So many people play into the possibilities along the way. The locals who dislike the wealthy Londoners coming to their town and buying up properties. People who are adverse to left wing politics. Politics in general being at play. It’s always a mystery to me until the criminal is revealed.

While these are the only Ann Cleeves novels I’ve indulged in, I truly believe that she has a gift for writing suspense. I will absolutely recommend this if that’s a genre you enjoy.

[Grandma Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 5 Stars

The Dying Light may be my favorite book in the Matthew Venn series so far, and that is saying something because I usually have a difficult time choosing a favorite book in a series that I enjoy.

The mystery itself kept me guessing. I was not able to figure out who the culprit was until the reveal, and the solution genuinely surprised me. I found the story relatively fast-paced, and it was difficult to find a good stopping point because I wanted to keep listening.

Matthew continues to be my favorite character. I especially enjoyed getting to know him better in this book. Matthew seems to learn several things about himself as the story progresses, and at the same time, we as readers and listeners learn more about him. I also really enjoyed seeing more of Matthew and Jonathan’s married life and their everyday interactions. It made both of them feel more personable and gave me a greater connection to the characters. I felt the same way about the other detectives. We get to know them better as people, and I think that added a great deal to this installment.

I primarily listened to the audiobook, and Jack Holden did an outstanding job with the narration. His pacing and inflection were excellent, and he did a wonderful job distinguishing the different characters. The narration definitely added to my enjoyment of the story.

I personally prefer books without profanity, and there is profanity in this book, sometimes more prevalent than at other times. However, it did not detract enough from my enjoyment of the story for me to lower my rating.

I thoroughly enjoyed the ending and am already looking forward to the next book in the series. I would highly recommend The Dying Light to anyone who enjoys a good mystery, especially one that isn’t easy to figure out and can genuinely keep you guessing.

Five stars and highly recommended.

I was blessed with both an ARC and an ALC of The Dying Light. I would like to thank NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press, and Macmillan Audio for the opportunity to read and listen to this book. The opinions expressed are my own and unbiased.

[Jacqui · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another excellent British detective novel by the master of atmospheric stories, Ann Cleeves. In The Dying Light (Minotaur Books 2026), 4th of the Detective Matthew Venn series, DI Venn is called to solve a thorny double death without clear evidence of murder or if so, the same murderer of two friends vacationing together before attending college. On the surface, they seem close, blowing off steam before committing to the challenges of a college degree. One is a well-to-do politician's daughter, the other her school friend. It would be easy to write the deaths off as accidents, at least one, but that's not how DI Venn works. He overturns every stone and sees what they tell him. The story that comes out is quite different from the easy-to-believe version.

If you've read Ann Cleeves, you know you are imbued with the aura of the area, like you live there and know the people. It's one characteristic that keeps me reading her novels--I feel like I'm understanding a world other than my native America. This one did that, but there are a few reasons I took a star off. One, Venn seems suspicious of those with money to the point at times of disdain. One of the story themes is the entitlement of wealth (well-healed politician staying in the British version of a blue-collar resort), with digs about those who work hard for their money compared to whatever the opposite is. Because it is a story theme, I went with it and Cleeves did blend it into the plot and characters well. For example, Venn dips into his personal history a lot, including his relationship with his husband, as Venn uses this to connect the dots of the varied clues and solve the crime. Cleeves novels are as much character driven as action driven, so this will please readers who like this sort of story.

The second reason for the star loss was the somewhat unsatisfying, not up to par with what I'd come to expect from Cleeves' novels. I'm easily convinced that was me, not the author. If you read the book, let me know your thoughts in the comments. 

[Obsidian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Please note that I received this book via NetGalley. This did not impact my rating or review.

The Dying Light continues to follow the Two Rivers series written by Ann Cleeves. In her newest, Cleeves has Detective Matthew Venn called in to investigate the death of a teenage girl, Lottie, in a swimming pool in the home of an up and coming politician, Paul Armstrong. The teenage girl is called Lottie, and what is making things even more frantic is that Lottie's best friend, Hannah Armstrong, is missing.

The Dying Light provides us Venn's third person point of view, buy we also get points of views of other characters too such as Jen, Ross (just a few which surprised me) and Paul Armstrong's wife. I honestly love Venn the most I think out of the characters that Cleeves has developed over the years because he seems more like someone I would actually interact with. He also has very realistic flaws I think when it comes to his personal life for good reason. And I think that he owns those flaws, but it's what makes him great at reading people and getting people to talk to him. I also think outside of the Jimmy Perez series, this is the only other one that has someone who is married and happy. I do love that we have Jonathan very present in this one with his own things that are going on that may shake up him and Matthew's happy home. We also get callbacks to prior novels with some characters re-appearing in this one that I always enjoy. I always find it weird in series when you have people meet and live among each other, you never see them again. 

Jen and Ross are starting to get shaped by him in a good way I think. Jen more than Ross seems to be growing into her role and trusting her instincts. We also get an inkling that things at home with Ross may not be great. 

I thought the overall plot involving Lottie and Hannah was really good and I honestly would not have guessed at what happened and who did what to whom. 

[Bloss ♡ · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 I love being surprised by books!
It's well documented that I haven't been super enamoured with the Two Rivers series. After the last book, I figured I'd leave the series behind. HOWEVER. I received an invitation to review this and, with a dearth of compelling books on my horizon decided that any Ann Cleeves is better than none, and took a chance.

This is a banger. I genuinely don't remember the last time I read 77% of a book in one sitting or read a book this quickly!

It had everything I needed from a mystery: solid pacing, a host of suspects that kept me guessing, and an ending that I didn't predict! While there were some elements that I saw coming -- Ann Cleeves' tropes like The Mysterious Second Cadaver™️ and a mystery trope of a third girl wronged -- it was super refreshing that both of my hypotheses for the perp were completely wrong!

The characters were a big reason I wasn't vibing with Two Rivers. BUT. I thought we learned a lot more about Matthew Venn in here and honestly? He's growing on me, becoming more human than robot. I remain wholly unconvinced about his marriage: not only do they not communicate, they seem to live completely separate lives?! I don't love his team like I do Vera's, but maybe I'm starting to understand them more.

The place has always felt uneasily claustrophobic to me, yet in this story, that hemmed-in feel amplified the suspense.

Lastly, I've noticed a deliberate(?) consciousness to Ann Cleeves' word choices. I was getting so dismayed at how fat phobic and gendered her language was becoming and she's really turned it around. The way she's started to intentionally challenge stereotypes through the characters themselves feels refreshing.

Need a good mystery? Check this out!

Thank you so much to Pan Macmillan for inviting me to review this.

[Angela · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received and ARC of this novel from NetGalley and Pan Macmillan in exchange for an honest review of this novel.

Reading The Dying Light reminded me, very clearly, why Ann Cleeves is a master of her craft… and why I most definitely am not.

This is the fourth book in her Matthew Venn series, and once again she proves just how effortlessly she can create a world that feels both atmospheric and deeply human. The novel follows Venn as he investigates the death of a young woman found in a swimming pool at a luxury Devon home, quickly spiralling into a case full of secrets, power, and simmering tensions ([Pan Macmillan][1]).

What struck me most (beyond the gripping mystery) was Cleeves’ sheer skill as a writer. To have not one, but *three* major series—Vera, Shetland, and this one—and make each feel completely distinct is honestly astonishing. The tone, the setting, the characters… none of them blur together. Each series has its own identity, its own rhythm, its own emotional core. That kind of range doesn’t just happen—it’s the mark of a true professional.

Matthew Venn himself continues to be such a compelling lead: quiet, thoughtful, and emotionally layered. Cleeves doesn’t rely on flashy twists alone; she builds tension through people, through silence, through what’s left unsaid. The story unfolds with that slow, deliberate precision she’s known for, where every detail matters and every character feels like they belong.

And that’s really the magic of this book. It’s not just about solving a crime: it’s about understanding a community, its fractures, and the secrets people hold onto. Under her pen, even the smallest moments feel intentional.

Honestly, reading this just reinforced one thing: Ann Cleeves is a genius. Few writers can juggle multiple beloved series and still make each one feel fresh, distinctive, and so completely immersive.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

DI Matthew Venn and his team return in this fourth installment of Ann Cleeves's Two Rivers series. In this one, Venn is called to investigate a double murder of two teenage girls, one the daughter of a prominent politician, the other a stellar student and prospective Olympic swimmer. We quickly learn that the close friendship between the two girls was not as rosy as it seemed. In fact, the girls are bound together by a horrible secret that may explain the motive for their deaths.
The solution to the mystery unfolds amid some new developments in the detectives' personal lives. Inspector Venn is still recovering from the trauma of his evangelical religious upbringing which led to a difficult relationship between him and his parents. At the same time, he struggles to support his husband, Jonathan, in finding his birth mother, fearing that her presence in their lives may change his relationship with Jonathan. Sergeant Jen Rafferty can't help but question some of her own decisions as a parent of teenagers as she investigates the girls' deaths. DS Ross May contemplates parenthood while gaining confidence in his career.
Overall, this book is a fantastic addition to the series. My one pet peeve about Ann Cleeves is that she often creates very detailed descriptions of the detectives' thought process, but the solution to the crime comes out of nowhere and there is no way the reader can solve the mystery on their own. Luckily, that is not the case here. I didn’t predict the ending but all the puzzle pieces were there. I rate this book four stars only because I have yet to feel the emotional connection to Matthew Venn that I have with Vera Stanhope and Jimmy Perez. I am hopeful that I'll feel more emotionally invested as the series goes on. Having said that, this book was thoroughly enjoyable and I will be continuing the series. Thanks to Netgalley for once again providing an E-ARC copy.

[TJ Wynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Dying Light was my first experience with the Matthew Venn series, and while I was initially worried about jumping in at book four, I never felt completely lost. There are references to previous events and relationships, but Ann Cleeves provides enough context that I was able to settle into the story without feeling like I had missed anything major.

This is definitely a slower, more character-driven mystery than the thrillers I usually gravitate toward. If you're expecting nonstop twists and action, this probably isn't that kind of book. Instead, the investigation unfolds gradually as Matthew Venn and his team peel back the layers surrounding the death of a young woman and the disappearance of another. There are plenty of suspects, hidden motives, and family secrets to sort through, and I appreciated that the mystery felt grounded rather than overly sensational.

Matthew Venn was easily my favorite part of the novel. He's thoughtful, observant, and refreshingly understated as a detective. His relationships, especially with his husband, Jonathan, and his team, add depth to the story and make him feel like a fully realized character rather than someone who exists solely to solve crimes.

My biggest criticism is the pacing. The middle section dragged a bit for me, and at times I wanted the investigation to move along a little faster. The large cast of characters also took some effort to keep straight early on. That said, once the pieces started falling into place, I enjoyed seeing how everything connected, and the ending felt believable and satisfying.

Overall, this was a well-written, atmospheric mystery with strong character development and an engaging investigation. While it wasn't quite a five-star read for me because of the slower pace, it definitely left me interested in going back and reading the earlier Matthew Venn books.

[Jackie M · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Dying Light: A Detective Matthew Venn Novel #4, by Ann Cleeves. St. Martin's Press | Minotaur Books, 2026.

The story begins in the Prologue, Friday morning. Seventeen year old Hannah and her friend Lottie, having just finished secondary school exams arrive at Hannah’s family holiday home in North Devon. Hannah has driven them from London overnight to spend a few days on their own before her parents and younger brothers arrive. This is likely one of their last times together before they head to different universities in the fall.

Chapter 1 is Monday morning. Detective Inspector Matthew Venn receives a phone call about a suspicious death and a missing young woman. The next forty chapters are classic British police procedural as DI Venn and his team methodically investigate despite a heatwave. Their work - gathering evidence, interviewing witnesses, and sifting through clues - is complicated by police and government department politics and unexpected relationships between and within five families – the parents and their late teen offspring.

There must be general agreement that Ann Cleeves’ writing style – how she writes to tell the story – and her plot and character development – what she writes, the content – are both simply superior. I consider her work in creating The Dying Light flawless.

Perhaps other readers will guess what happened correctly long before I did, I was surprised but was satisfied that it made sense. I was puzzled about the book title until I read her subscriber newsletter (https://www.anncleeves.com/newsletter...).

Disclosure: I received a review copy of The Dying Light free via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. #TheDyingLight #NetGalley.

[Janette · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a thoroughly satisfying murder mystery and was the perfect read for a very hot Summer evening.
In the fourth book in the Two Rivers series, Ann Cleeves has produced an intriguing mystery with a probable double murder but no obvious motive. The plot definitely moves with the times as we have issues such as second homes in tourist areas and the power of social media all forming part of the story.
As always with her books, they contain brilliantly drawn characters who all came across as believable. I love the team that Ann Cleeves has created for D I Matthew Venn. His own character grows with each book as he begins to feel more secure in his marriage and I really like the relationship he has with his sergeant Jen. Howver, I think my favourite character on the police side has to be Ross who used to be extremely irritating but now is definitely showing real signs of maturity and becoming a good detective.
The Devon setting is beautiful and is an integral part of the story. It’s set in a heatwave and this book doesn’t have the brooding threatening atmosphere that some of her other books have had but the tension is still there. The book moves at a steady pace and the tension definitely increases as the police begin to tie the apparently random threads together. Of course, the mystery is solved but there is no celebration here. Instead we get a feeling of sadness as lives have been destroyed and nothing will ever put things right which feels entirely appropriate.
I loved The Dying Light and am already looking forward to whatever Ann Cleeves writes next.
My thanks as always to Net Galley and the publishers for providing this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

[Shelley Quezada · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ann Cleeves’s fourth Matthew Venn mystery is an atmospheric and thoughtfully plotted crime novel set in North Devon (England) where tensions between longtime residents and wealthy outsiders simmer beneath the surface. When the body of teenage Lottie Cauldwell is discovered in the swimming pool of a second home owned by a prominent cabinet minister, Venn and his team are drawn into a case that quickly becomes more complicated—and more public—when Hannah the minister’s daughter goes missing. Cleeves builds suspense through carefully drawn characters, a strong sense of place, and the gradual uncovering of secrets surrounding the two young women. What initially appears to be an idyllic friendship proves to be far more complicated, while old resentments and hidden motives emerge within the community. Venn’s troubled past and his relationship with his husband, Jonathan, add another layer of emotional complexity. The coastal setting is a character in itself. The story is an exploration of the relationship between locals and affluent newcomers who are often resented for changing the community that relies economically on outsiders. Venn’s investigative team Jen and Ross develop under his leadership, learning the value of patience and, especially, knowing when to remain silent and let people talk. The mystery is intricate without becoming convoluted, and the resolution is convincing. Although this is the fourth Matthew Venn novel, it works well as a standalone. For readers who enjoy character-driven mysteries, atmospheric settings, and investigations that unfold at a deliberate pace. The narration by Jack Holden Macmillan Audio is excellent and a satisfying addition to the series.

[Alyson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very much enjoyed this story by Anne Cleeves involving Inspector Matthew Venn. Set in a very hot summer, the descriptions are excellent and you almost feel the heat rising from the pages of the book. When the Armstrong family arrive at their holiday home in north Devon they find their daughter's friend dead in the swimming pool and shortly after, the body of their daughter is discovered near the beach.
Venn and his team, have a tricky job because Mr Armstrong is an up and coming politician, tipped to become prime minister in the future so the pressure is on to discover if this is a political killing. Venn is calm and controlled in his approach, a contrast to his red headed Sergeant, Jen Rafferty and rookie, Ross. Unlike many fictional detectives he doesn't appear to have a vice. His main concern out of work is his marriage.
Since this is a crime story there are of course several possible leads the police have to follow and many red herrings. But the case is wrapped up well, with it all making sense and all the endings carefully tidied away.
The pacing is good and the story moves along well, although without any great excitement. The characters are well formed, especially Venn who comes across as multi-layered. The differences between the locals and the incomers are referenced several times, and tensions between those who wield power over others is a constant theme through the book.
The writing is excellent and makes very easy reading, a product I suspect of a great deal of time and effort on behalf of the author.
With thanks to Netgalley, the author and Macmillan Publishing for an early copy in return for an honest review.