Marilyn's Mystery Reads

The Killing Stones is the first in what apparently will be a new series by Ann Cleeves.  It features Jimmy Perez, the Detective Inspector in her Shetland series, but adds his significant other, Willow, a detective and his supervisor.  This duo, in love with each other and with their new home on Westray, a small island belonging to Orkney, an archipelago off the coast of Scotland, makes a formidable pair.

Willow is returning home from a brief visit to Aberdeen when she gets a phone call from Jimmy.  His best friend and cousin, Archie Stout, has been murdered, and Jimmy finds his body.  Archie was a larger-than-life figure on the island, with both friends and enemies.  He’d been out visiting friends, his wife Vaila tells Jimmy, but when he didn’t come home after delivering wood to some neighbors, she became concerned and drove to the hotel where she thought he’d be, having a few drinks with friends.  But Archie wasn’t there, and soon the entire island is looking for him.

The murder weapon is one of a pair of Neolithic stones on display in the Westray Heritage Centre.  To Jimmy, this speaks of premeditation.  How did the killer get the stone?  Why use that stone when there were so many other accessible weapons available?  And now the other stone has disappeared.

There are certainly enough suspects on the island.  One is Rosalie Greeman, a newcomer to Westray, a recent widow with whom Archie was eager to begin an affair.  When Perez interviews her, she admits the attraction but is adamant that there had not been anything physical between them.  Then there are Tony and Barbara Johnson.  They had worked on a dig when they were teenagers and returned now to celebrate the 40th anniversary of their meeting.  Tony is quite well known to the British public thanks to his television appearances, but Willow finds him aloof and condescending when she interviews the couple.

Archie’s death left Vaila and his two teenaged sons, Iain and Lawrie, in charge of the family farm.  Iain is the intellectual son, happy at school and destined for university, while Lawrie, the older, is happy working on the farm.  But whether he can keep the farm afloat is another issue.

Then there’s a second murder.  The victim is George Riley, a teacher who has taught the children on the island for years, including Archie and his sons.  Jimmy has been trying to reach him since Archie’s murder, only to find out that he’s been off-island at a teachers’ conference.  They arrange to meet at the visitors’ centre, which had housed the two special stones, but when Jimmy arrives he can’t find George anywhere.

When he finally enters the centre’s burial chamber he finds George’s body.  It had been crammed into a small circular chamber, and the second Neolithic stone was near him, covered in blood and pieces of bone.

Ann Cleeves’ love of the Orkney islands is clear on every page of this novel.  Her descriptions of the various places on the islands are beautiful and vivid.  And her accounts of the people on the islands, with their strengths and quirks, make the book come alive.

You can read more about the author at this website.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her website.  In addition to book review posts, there are sections featuring Golden Oldies, Past Masters and Mistresses, and an About Marilyn column that features her opinions about everything to do with mystery novels.