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Shetland #1-7
Ann Cleeves Shetland Series Collection 7 Books Set
Ann Cleeves Shetland Quartet Collection 7 Books Set Titles in the set Blue Lightning, Raven Black, White Nights, Red Bones, Cold Earth, Thin Air, Dead Water
Paperback
Published January 1, 2017
2 people are currently reading
220 people want to read
About the author
Ann Cleeves
133 books8,782 followersAnn 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
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
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 20, 2025
I have now read all of Ann Cleeves original series of books, and I've seen all TV episodes up to the end of series seven. I know I have two more series to look forward to, with a change of lead as DI Jimmy Perez (Douglas Henshall) is replaced by DI Ruth Calder (Ashley Jensen).
I have enjoyed all of them, print and screen, which has surprised me a bit. I often prefer books to filmed interpretations, but these differ a lot, particularly in characterisation and I have really enjoyed both. Ann Cleeves is a brilliant writer, grounded in her locations and deeply involved with her characters.
The TV interpretation of the Shetland stories is excellent, the cinematography and locations are beautiful, enigmatic and give the entire series a noir atmosphere which really suits the stories, although liberties are taken, and only series one and two are based on the stories in the books. The character of Fran, in particular is very different, she doesn't appear at all on TV, she's just Cassie's deceased mum and Jimmy Perez' dead wife.
The characters of two other police officers, Sandy Wilson and Alison McIntosh (Tosh) are treated radically differently in the books. Sandy (played on TV by native Shetlander Steven Robertson) plays a major role in print, the action is often from his POV and his character's development over the series is almost as good as that of Jimmy Perez (Douglas Henshall), whilst Sandy's TV role is subordinate. On the other hand Tosh (Alison O'Donnell) is Perez right-hand woman on TV yet hardly gets a mention in the books at all.
The first, two part TV series is based on The Red Bones, which is probably the best of the books, so I'm not surprised they chose this story to begin with. It worked and was popular so series two involved three more books, Raven Black, Dead Water and Blue Lightening. Each story was given two episodes. After that the TV stories diverged from the remaining novels.
As a fellow writer I will name the TV writers, no more actors:- episodes were written exclusively for the screen by Gaby Chiappe, David Kane, Richard Davidson, Robert Murphy, Alexander Perrin, Paul Logue and Louise Ironside, Later series 8 - 10, which I haven't yet viewed, are by Paul Logue and Denise Paul.
Meanwhile Ann Cleeves, the author, has just published another Jimmy Perez novel, which I'm excited about and look froward to reading. It's her first Perez story since 2018 and is no longer set on Shetland. Ann has said about the book, that she felt there needed to be more to DI Jimmy Perez story. I agree
I have enjoyed all of them, print and screen, which has surprised me a bit. I often prefer books to filmed interpretations, but these differ a lot, particularly in characterisation and I have really enjoyed both. Ann Cleeves is a brilliant writer, grounded in her locations and deeply involved with her characters.
The TV interpretation of the Shetland stories is excellent, the cinematography and locations are beautiful, enigmatic and give the entire series a noir atmosphere which really suits the stories, although liberties are taken, and only series one and two are based on the stories in the books. The character of Fran, in particular is very different, she doesn't appear at all on TV, she's just Cassie's deceased mum and Jimmy Perez' dead wife.
The characters of two other police officers, Sandy Wilson and Alison McIntosh (Tosh) are treated radically differently in the books. Sandy (played on TV by native Shetlander Steven Robertson) plays a major role in print, the action is often from his POV and his character's development over the series is almost as good as that of Jimmy Perez (Douglas Henshall), whilst Sandy's TV role is subordinate. On the other hand Tosh (Alison O'Donnell) is Perez right-hand woman on TV yet hardly gets a mention in the books at all.
The first, two part TV series is based on The Red Bones, which is probably the best of the books, so I'm not surprised they chose this story to begin with. It worked and was popular so series two involved three more books, Raven Black, Dead Water and Blue Lightening. Each story was given two episodes. After that the TV stories diverged from the remaining novels.
As a fellow writer I will name the TV writers, no more actors:- episodes were written exclusively for the screen by Gaby Chiappe, David Kane, Richard Davidson, Robert Murphy, Alexander Perrin, Paul Logue and Louise Ironside, Later series 8 - 10, which I haven't yet viewed, are by Paul Logue and Denise Paul.
Meanwhile Ann Cleeves, the author, has just published another Jimmy Perez novel, which I'm excited about and look froward to reading. It's her first Perez story since 2018 and is no longer set on Shetland. Ann has said about the book, that she felt there needed to be more to DI Jimmy Perez story. I agree
May 3, 2022
I loved these books. I blasted through all of them. I love the detective, Jimmy Perez, and though his character took twists and turns I did NOT expect (Kudos to Ann Cleeves for being able to shock us), I would follow him anywhere.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews