The Dark Wives by Ann Cleeves - Review

Thank you so much to Pan Macmillan for granting me access to this, the new Ann Cleeves book, on Netgalley. I love Ann Cleeves and am slowly making my way through her back catalogue, so I was really happy to read this new book just as it came out. I was provided with an electronic copy of this book for review purposes, but was not otherwise compensated for this review. All thoughts and opinions are my own. 

This is a Vera Stanhope book and it was really good to be back with her. At the beginning of the book a young girl goes missing from a care home, and the body of one of the workers from the home is found nearby. The girl, Chloe, has left a diary behind and it seems like she may have had a crush on Josh, the worker. He is a student and his parents live in a big house quite nearby - but they didn't know he was working in the care home. It seems very much like Chloe could have killed him and taken off, but Vera doesn't want to believe that of a damaged young woman. The team starts to investigate. Vera is blaming herself for the death of one of their team in a previous book, and there's a replacement, Rosie, to get to know too. 

Josh took the job to try to impress his ex girlfriend, Stella, who is a save the world type and who lives on a commune with her dad. It's somewhere that Chloe has visited, too, so there's a link there. Josh and his dad used to go climbing on a hill where the titular Dark Wives - three stones - stand. Another body turns up there, the body of one of Chloe's housemates, another vulnerable young man in care. It looks like an overdose, but is it? 

There's a lot of layers in the book and many different strands of story. I'm honestly not sure how Cleeves keeps them all straight! I really enjoyed this and am giving it five out of five because I really enjoyed reading it.