Okay, I love Matthew Venn. He’s so sweet but awkward and ultimately determined to do the right thing. He’s such a lovable character. I didn’t much care for the rivalry between Jen and Ross, though, so that tempered a bit of the enjoyment I got from the characters themselves. They were all excellent written with their own motivations and backstories that make them who they are, but there are just those people you kind of wish would get over an aspect of themselves, and that’s these two. 

The setting is gorgeously grey, dark, and desolate. It was the perfect setting for the mystery and really leaned into those aesthetics and expectations. At times, Greystone truly felt like another character. And the people living there fit in beautifully. Small town, almost cult-y vibes from them all carved out the most base emotions while reading. It was easy to be intimidated, irritated, and othered by them as we interviewed them alongside Jen, Ross, and Matthew. 

The mystery was also so good! I had ideas about who it could have been, but being in the heads of the officers themselves made clues stand out while driving readers along with the red herrings. This is the first in a long time I hadn’t guessed the murderer and was surprised at the end. 

Ann Cleeves did an amazing job at intertwining different aspects to create an engaging plot with characters you can root for with realistic habits and actions that humanize them. 

The only thing I wasn’t super fond of, but knew was going to be a key part in the series was the child character’s serious illness. Maybe it’s because I’m not a UK reader, but I spent more time wondering what the illness was and it was hard to sympathize with the parent in the right way to keep myself in the story when it was discussed. I tried to look up the disease, but nothing came up and a friend in the UK couldn’t find anything either. Was this a made up illness??