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When the morning post brings the final novel in a series it is at best a mixed blessing: as readers we've grown accustomed to the characters and their relationships, formed a bond of sorts with the more likeable figures, become engrossed in the evolving storylines of their lives, and are understandably reluctant to see the last of them. At the same time, knowledgeable readers recognise that any series has a limited shelf life, and authors can grow restive and want to set out in new directions.
WILD FIRE is the eighth and final novel in Ann Cleeves' highly successful Shetland series. It features Scottish Detective Inspector Jimmy Perez and his team, set against the stark and remote Orkney Islands in the north of Scotland. It is a harsh life for the inhabitants, and the elements that define their daily lives are primal and sometimes cruel.
In WILD FIRE Jimmy Perez is called to the tiny village of Deltaness. After receiving several anonymous notes suggesting that a family of incomers are not welcome there, their autistic son Christopher finds the body of a young woman hanging in the family's barn. It is the same barn where the previous owner of the property, Dennis Gear, had hanged himself, unable to cope with the loss of the family home that had meant so much to him. It soon becomes evident that the victim, a nanny to the children of a local GP, did not commit suicide.
Before long another person dies, and she won't be the last.
Jimmy Perez, aided by senior officer and his occasional lover Willow Reeves, must somehow dig beneath the surface of the islanders' daily lives to uncover long-hidden secrets so private, and so compelling that someone could be driven to murder because of them. And when he does, the truth that emerges is more disturbing than even he could have imagined.
Ann Cleeves has been entertaining readers in more than thirty novels written over the past three decades. During that time she has honed her craft to the point where, in 2017, she was awarded the prestigious CWA Diamond Dagger for excellence in crime writing. Cleeves' stories perfectly reveal the atmosphere of their specific settings, and her use of multiple viewpoints to tell her story gives genuine depth to each of her characters. Like her other novels in the series, WILD FIRE is often dark and more than a little disturbing, as it's meant to be. But it is nonetheless an immensely rewarding read. Cleeves' many fans may lament the fact that the series has drawn to an end; but I would suggest that instead we rejoice at the promise of more, and perhaps even better, things to come.
§ Since 2005 Jim Napier's reviews and interviews have appeared in several Canadian newspapers and on various crime fiction and literary websites, including his own award-winning review site, Deadly Diversions. His debut crime novel Legacy was published in the Spring of 2017, and the second in the series, Ridley's War, is scheduled for release in the Fall of 2018.
Reviewed by Jim Napier, April 2018
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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