Cold Earth (Shetland, 7) - Hardcover

Ann Cleeves is a skilful technician, keeping our interest alive and building slowly up to the denouement. Her easy use of language and clever story construction make her one of the best natural writers of detective fiction * Daily Express * Nobody does unsettling undercurrents better than Ann Cleeves -- Val McDermid Cleeves is quietly carving out a reputation as the new Queen of Crime -- Sunday Mirror A fine writer -- Sunday Telegraph

Cold Earth is the seventh book in Ann Cleeves' Shetland series - a major BBC One drama starring Douglas Henshall. In the dark days of a Shetland winter, torrential rain triggers a landslide that crosses the main Lerwick-Sumburgh road and sweeps down to the sea. At the burial of his old friend Magnus Tait, Jimmy Perez watches the flood of mud and peaty water smash through a croft house in its path. Everyone thinks the croft is uninhabited, but in the wreckage he finds the body of a dark-haired woman wearing a red silk dress. In his mind, she shares his Mediterranean ancestry and soon he becomes obsessed with tracing her identity. Then it emerges that she was already dead before the landslide hit the house. Perez knows he must find out who she was, and how she died. Also available in the Shetland series are Raven Black, White Nights, Red Bones, Blue Lightning, Dead Water and Thin Air.