Vera Stanhope Books in Order: How to read Ann Cleeves’s series?

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Probably more famous for the British television series Vera on ITV, which stars Brenda Blethyn, Vera Stanhope is the main protagonist of the crime series written by Ann Cleeves (the author of the Shetland series).

Vera Stanhope is a Detective Chief Inspector working for Northumberland & City Police. She is known for being obsessive about her work, using her calculating mind to identify killers. Driven by her own demons, she’s also known for her irascible personality. She is not one to make friends easily, but she cares deeply about her comrades.

How to read the Vera Stanhope Series in Order?

Each novel in the Vera Stanhope book series is offering a standalone story, but the lives of the different characters evolve from one book to the other.

  1. The Crow Trap – Three very different women come together to complete an environmental survey. For team leader Rachael Lambert the project is the perfect opportunity to rebuild her confidence. Botanist Anne Preece sees it as a chance to indulge in a little deception of her own. And then there is Grace Fulwell, a strange, uncommunicative young woman with plenty of her own secrets to hide… When Rachael arrives at the cottage, however, she is horrified to discover the body of her friend Bella Furness. When another death occurs, Detective Inspector Vera Stanhope enters the picture….
  2. Telling Tales – It has been ten years since Jeanie Long was charged with the murder of fifteen-year-old Abigail Mantel. Now residents of the East Yorkshire village of Elvet are disturbed to hear of new evidence proving Jeanie’s innocence. Abigail’s killer is still at large. As Inspector Vera Stanhope makes fresh enquiries on the peninsula and villagers are hauled back to a time they hoped to forget, tensions begin to mount.
  3. Hidden Depths – On a hot summer on the Northumberland coast, Julie Armstrong arrives home from a night out to find her son murdered. The stylized murder scene has Inspector Vera Stanhope and her team intrigued. But now, Vera must work quickly to find this killer who is making art out of death.
  1. Silent Voices – When Vera finds the body of a woman in the sauna of her local gym, she wonders briefly if, for once in her life, she’s uncovered a simple death of natural causes. But when a closer inspection reveals bruises around the victim’s throat, Vera’s team starts their investigation. Vera and her colleagues soon uncover details in the victim’s past that may explain her untimely death. But Vera knows from experience that there’s no such thing as a simple case…
  2. The Glass Room – DI Vera Stanhope is not one to make friends easily, but her hippy neighbors keep her well-supplied in homebrew and conversation, and somehow bonds have formed. When one of them goes missing, Vera tracks the young woman down to the Writer’s House, a country retreat where aspiring authors work on their stories. Things get complicated when a body is discovered, and Vera’s neighbor is found with a knife in her hand.
  3. Harbour Street – As the snow falls, the shouts and laughter of Christmas revelers break the muffled silence. Detective Joe Ashworth and his daughter Jessie are swept along in the jostling crowd onto the Metro. But when the train is stopped, Jessie notices that one lady hasn’t left the train: Margaret Krukowski has been fatally stabbed. Then, just days later, a second woman is murdered. DI Vera Stanhope knows that to find the key to this new killing she needs to understand what had been troubling Margaret so deeply before she died.
  1. The Moth Catcher – Life seems perfect in the quiet community of Valley Farm. Then a shocking discovery shatters the silence. The owners of a big country house have employed a house-sitter, a young ecologist, to look after the place while they’re away. But his dead body is found by the side of the lane―a lonely place to die. When DI Vera Stanhope arrives on the scene, she finds the body of a second man. What the two victims seem to have in common is a fascination with studying moths.
  2. The Seagull – A visit to her local prison brings DI Vera Stanhope face to face with an old enemy. John Brace was convicted of corruption and involvement in the death of a gamekeeper – and Vera played a key part in his downfall. Now, Brace promises Vera information about the disappearance of Robbie Marshall, a notorious wheeler-dealer who disappeared in the mid-nineties, if she will look out for his daughter and grandchildren. However, when a search team investigates, officers find not one skeleton, but two.
  3. Frozen (short story) – For once, Detective Inspector Vera Stanhope is managing to have a good day off. Strolling around town, she ducks into a new bookshop in a renovated chapel. But just as she does, a skeleton is discovered in the old baptismal font. Soon, a decade-old mystery is revived, and Vera must uncover secrets long buried before this case once again goes cold.
  4. The Darkest Evening – On the first snowy night of winter, Detective Inspector Vera Stanhope sets off for her home in the hills. Though the road is familiar, she misses a turning and soon becomes lost and disorientated. A car has skidded off the narrow road in front of her, its door left open, and she stops to help. There is no driver to be seen, so Vera assumes that the owner has gone to find help. But a cry calls her back: a toddler is strapped in the back seat.
  1. The Woman on the Island (short story) – Vera goes on a day trip to Holy Island, eager to escape the pressures of work. When there she is reminded of the day decades earlier when she, as a teenager, went with her father Hector on another day trip, and the mystery woman he met there… Vera already knew then that Hector kept secrets, but this time the fledgling investigator was determined to find the truth, never realizing it would mean taking her first step on the path to becoming a detective…
  2. The Rising Tide – For fifty years a group of friends has been meeting regularly for reunions on Holy Island, celebrating the school trip where they met, and the friend that they lost to the rising causeway tide five years later. Now, when one of them is found hanged, Vera is called in. Learning that the dead man had recently been fired after misconduct allegations, Vera knows she must discover what the friends are hiding, and whether the events of many years before could have led to murder then, and now . . .

If you like our article about the Vera Stanhope reading order, don’t forget to bookmark this page to be sure not to miss any new books. You may also be interested in the Brighton Mysteries or the Jane Tennison series.

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