7.6 /10 1 Votes7.6
Language English Awards 2006 CWA Gold Dagger Followed by White Nights | 3.8/5 Goodreads Originally published 2006 Genre Crime Fiction Award Gold Dagger | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Publisher Pan, St. Martin's Minotaur (US) ISBN 978-1-4050-5472-0 (hardback) Similar Ann Cleeves books, Crime Fiction books | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Raven Black is a 2006 novel by Ann Cleeves that won the Duncan Lawrie Dagger Award for the best crime novel of the year. The novel is the first in a series known as the Shetland Island series
Contents
Synopsis
It is a cold January morning and Shetland lies buried beneath a deep layer of snow. Trudging home, Fran Hunter's eye is drawn to a vivid splash of colour on the white ground, ravens circling above. It is the strangled body of her teenage neighbour Catherine Ross. As Fran opens her mouth to scream, the ravens continue their deadly dance ...The locals on the quiet island stubbornly focus their gaze on one man—loner and simpleton Magnus Tait, who was the prime suspect a number of years earlier when a young girl named Catriona disappeared. But when police insist on opening out the investigation a veil of suspicion and fear is thrown over the entire community. For the first time in years, Catherine's neighbours nervously lock their doors, whilst a killer lives on in their midst.
Detective Jimmy Perez, who grew up on the nearby Fair Isle is called in to investigate.
Adaptations
The BBC adapted Raven Black for television in 2014, as the first and second episodes in the second series of Shetland, starring Douglas Henshall as Jimmy Perez and Brian Cox as Magnus Tait (renamed Magnus Bain).