Suspects as Narrators and Detectives: Ann Cleeves’ Vera Stanhope

Immediately after I complained about the group of suspects standing in for the detective, I read the first three Vera Stanhope books by Ann Cleeves and found the same thing, particularly in the first two:  suspects, or civilians within the circle of suspects or potential victims, conducting their own speculations and investigations. Interestingly, it doesn’t bother me as much when Cleeves does it! 

Before I get into my thoughts, some quick background:  I’ve read and really enjoyed Cleeves’ Shetland and Two Rivers books (in fact, Shetland has been on my reread list because I remember liking them), but hadn’t touched Vera. No particular reason except maybe they were a little more difficult to find, or maybe I have been low key saving them for a rainy day. I’ve been on a Britbox gift subscription and the show Vera was recommended to me. I thought about watching before reading, but since this is a series I’ve always intended to get to, and because it seems like most episodes aren’t actually adaptations of the books, I decided to prioritize the first few books which do make up the first season. I’m not terribly fussy about spoilers--my feeling generally is that if I am going to enjoy a book, I’ll enjoy it no matter what I know going in--but I do like to pay attention to and think about adaptation choices. So I bought the first few and made them my Christmas break reads! 

The Crow Trap (1999), the first book, is apparently unloved by fans because Vera doesn’t make an
appearance until midway through the book. Instead, the first half passes point of view duties between three scientists as they live together in a cottage while working on an environmental survey in advance of

a commercial quarry development. One of the women is grappling with the apparent suicide of her friend. One is having an affair with the developer. The third and youngest of the scientists whose mind we live in is murdered, and Vera Stanhope makes a dramatic entrance one third of the way into the book to solve her mystery. It’s even later still until the third person close POV drifts into Vera’s mind. Even then, after the point she bursts into the narrative, Vera’s main role is in squatting in the corner of the cottage encouraging the two surviving scientists in their own inquiries. When we get it, her inner monologues are more focused on her memories of the cottage and her father, with relatively little puzzling out of the case itself. If I were to describe Vera's characterization in this book, I’d call it impressionistic and literary:  she is a character, but in the model of literary mystery, the way she engages with the crime is through the lens of the personal. Her narration is devoted as much to remembering her father and childhood as it is to deducting and detecting. She doesn't feel quite like a person yet the way Jimmy Perez of Shetland did immediately. (I think Jimmy Perez is a fantastically written character.) It’s funny that Vera is so fuzzily characterized in the first book because all three of the other POV characters are very well defined, and very distinct from one another. 

Vera is strange in the book. On the surface there is a similarity to Detective Cockrill, whose presence in Brand’s books I dislike so very much (so far):  both are ominous presences, watchful, physically off-putting; both treat the civilians with a distinct lack of care. Like Cockrill, Vera is introduced as a cynic and a misanthrope. Vera actually reminds me a little of Christie’s Miss Marple, and I have got to think that it’s impossible that Cleeves wasn’t putting a spin on that character at least a little bit. Like Miss Marple, Vera uses her appearance (in this case, middle aged, overweight, unlovely) as a disguise, to lure her suspects into a false sense of safety. Like Marple, she moves in small towns and has an understanding of the dynamics and subaltern histories of small communities that can only be won through living in one for decades. And like Marple, her physique is sometimes a limit, and she may deputize others to ferret out bits of information to bring to her.

Even if The Crow Trap never did circle around to giving point-of-view into Vera’s mind, she would be an active investigator:  Vera manipulates the surviving women into serving as her delegates in interacting with suspects, especially encouraging their interest in the earlier suicide. Whether this is because she really thinks they may be on to something, or because she has an abiding interest in local gossip isn’t quite clear. Another key feature of  The Crow Trap is that the surrogates aren’t suspects. This makes their cooperation with one another and with the detective much more realistic and palatable. As the title alludes, they are bait, and while Vera’s thinking and motivations for this unorthodox gambit aren’t very deeply explored, it is a textual choice she has made, and her presence in their lives during tea times and evening drinks makes sense:  she's watching over them. Even while physically passive, Vera is mentally proactive, and the reader is very much aware of it.

I understand why fans would be confused by the structure of the first book, especially if they were coming from the show, but it doesn’t bother me. I can be ambivalent about alternating narrators, but I do like when books have an intentional structure like this one does, and I like when the reader is given more information than the characters. The first third of this book almost has a Rashomon structure, with different points of view on the same event. I also like that the characters themselves have secrets from each other and Vera, and that some of those secrets survive the book–a theme that continues through all three. 

The Crow Trap was published in 1999, and the second book, Telling Tales, was published in 2005. I wonder if Cleeves always intended this to be a series, or if perhaps The Crow Trap was written as a stand-alone novel. I could easily believe this. Telling Tales (2005) is, I think, more representative of the series: while the close third person POV does continue to shift between Vera and people related to the crime, the division is more even, with no delay in Vera's appearance. Vera is more deeply characterized in book two:  she emerges as a definite alcoholic; her dynamic with other officers and with her second is more clearly defined and described; and her complicated feelings about suspects and bystanders to crime is explored. At least in the next two books, she doesn’t explicitly deputize surrogates to detect for her, though her interest in and reliance on gossip remains. The Vera in Telling Tales has the feeling of a character being developed for a long series in the way that the character in The Crow Trap doesn’t. I wasn’t surprised to see similar themes and characterizations continued in Hidden Depths.

In the first book, I felt that the characterization and distinction of the side characters/secondary narrators/surrogate detectives was a strong point. This strength continues through the next two. Even with more intentional characterization, Vera herself continues to feel a little like an enigma, but Cleeves is good at creating point of view characters who have some involvement with the case. These characters don’t continue between books, and the way that they end can feel abrupt. I would guess that for some readers, this is upsetting:  open-endedness is somewhat at odds with a genre that inherently is about solving mysteries, uncovering secrets, and tying up loose ends. In Cleeves’ hands, I like it. I think it’s very intentional what she does and doesn’t choose to resolve, and I don’t mind that griefs are unresolved, that ruptures in relationships are unrepaired, that secrets stay secret.  

Though I did quite like the first two books, Hidden Depths (2007) was my favorite of the three, even though the solution to the mystery was abrupt and under-clued, with a particularly poor motive. I don’t think I read Cleeves for the mysteries, but rather for the pleasure of joining a sharp observer in putting small communities and complex personalities under a magnifying glass. I particularly liked this book because I think one of Cleeves’ strengths is scientific communities. One of the Shetland books I remember liking particularly was about bird watchers, and both books 1 and 3 touch on this community as well. Cleeves is good at describing the rituals and dynamics in isolated communities, particularly scientific communities, to people like me who have no experience with them and never will. 

With these three books out of the way, I’m ready to start watching the show, and I am very excited to see how Brenda Blethyn (a great actor!) interprets a character who is so complex on page. Even though it’s my understanding that the book and the show diverge fairly quickly, I am definitely planning to continue reading the Vera Stanhope books! Writing this made me want to cue up book four, but I will wait and finish the two books I'm working through right now first (both speculative fiction, though they have some overlap, so maybe they'll show up here).