So how come, 10,000 Birds readers may be asking, are you reviewing a crime novel - and a crime novel that hasn’t even been published in the US yet? Well actually, that’s quite a good story (not as good as ‘Blue Lightning’ as it happens, but still worth telling).

At last year’s BirdFair I made the acquaintance of Tim Cleeves (those of you on the ball may have already noted that a surname connects Tim and Ann - yes, they are indeed husband and wife). Tim is a thoroughly excellent bloke who gave us a splendid interview on the Slender-billed Curlew at the end of last year, and when Ann’s novel ‘Raven Black‘ was adapted for radio I posted up and Aside. As a gesture of thanks they offered to send me Ann’s brand new novel ‘Blue Lightning’, which is trailed on Ann’s website as ‘the last of the Shetland quartet’.

The last? Oh yes, I have already missed the first three books of the four, but I’m always up for a free book (publishers take note - that’s ‘always’). With the proviso that I knew nothing about detective novels, haven’t read a crime novel for decades, and may well miss the point by miles I gladly accepted and offered to write a review. And I’m very glad I did.

Firstly though what was it about ‘Blue Lightning’ that Tim or Ann thought may interest me (this is relevant, so bear with me) and might interest 10,000 Birds readers?

I’ll tell you: because it’s got birds and birdwatchers in it! And because it’s set on one of the UK’s most iconic birdwatching sites, the remote and rugged Fair Isle, Britain’s most isolated inhabited island and home to one of the world’s best known bird observatories. Every single birder in the UK has either visited, is planning to visit, or grew up wanting to visit Fair Isle (I’m in the latter group unfortunately) - and even if you’re not a UK birder you’ll likely have heard of Fair Isle at some point.

A good place to set a novel? A taster for ‘Blue Lightning’ part-introduces the novel thus:

“Detective Jimmy Perez knows it will be a difficult homecoming when he returns to Fair Isle to introduce his fiancée, Fran, to his parents. It’s a community where everyone knows each other, and strangers, while welcomed, are still viewed with a degree of mistrust.

When a woman’s body is discovered at the renowned Fair Isle bird observatory, with feathers threaded through her hair, the islanders react with fear and anger. With no support from the mainland and only Fran to help him, Jimmy has to investigate the old-fashioned way. He soon realises that this is no crime of passion - but a murder of cold and calculated intention!

Blimey eh!

Now that’s the sort of text that either leaves a reader salivating at the prospect of a darn good story, or a little cold because ‘crime novels’ per se are not your thing and novelists need to be very careful when they attempt to weave stories around rarities and birders and sites that are pretty much part of the fabric of UK birdwatching. I’m in the latter camp I suppose. The potential for disaster is high, after all: most writers with no knowledge of the twitching scene or that force a plot using a species that will simply never turn up are asking for trouble frankly, as birders reviewing their book will spend their time being distracted by errors and cliches that - had the novelist only checked - been easily avoided.

Happily, though, novelists who know the Shetlands well and who married one of Britain’s most well-known birders after meeting him on Fair Isle itself (Ann’s web biography contains the following gem: “While she was cooking in the Bird Observatory on Fair Isle, she met her husband Tim, a visiting ornithologist. She was attracted less by the ornithology than the bottle of malt whisky she saw in his rucksack when she showed him his room.”) don’t make these kind of mistakes.

In fact birds are essential to the plot (as it turns out) and there is a key plot device that relies on a rarity turning up on Fair Isle at a time when Jimmy Perez is struggling to keep people away from the crime-scene - or leaving the island on the very same transport that brings the birders in and out. A novelist who doesn’t know what they’re writing about could have scuppered the story very quickly by getting either elements wrong, but both are very plausible and well-chosen (I won’t give anything away but read ‘Blue Lightning’ and you’ll see what I mean).

Additionally while I haven’t been to Fair Isle I have birded on the Shetlands, I’ve been a UK twitcher, and I spent much of the 1990s at Portland Bird Observatory, so I think I’m pretty well-qualified to talk about rarities, how twitchers think, and the atmosphere at a bird obs. Once again Ann gets the scene absolutely correct: the descriptions of the island (the weather, the light, the sounds and smells) are just wonderful; the main characters are satisfyingly believable; the tensions and petty arguments that break out could have been diary entries from a stint at any bird obs in the country rather than just imagined. From a birding point of view there is nothing in ‘Blue Lightning’ that will make you go “What? THAT just wouldn’t happen” - in fact I found myself giving a frequent chuckle as I recognised something from my own experience.

Okay, that’s the birding side of things ticked, what about the fact that is a review of a crime novel not a bird book?

As I said I haven’t read a detective novel since - er, I have no idea actually. Do ‘The Secret Seven’ count as detectives? I suspect not, which means I may well have never actually bought a crime novel, and can’t actually remember the last time I picked one up looking for something to read.

However, were I to start reading this distinct genre of books, I could do far worse than start with Ann Cleeves. Birding knowledge aside, Ann is a highly-respected and award-winning writer. In 2006 she was the first winner of the prestigious Duncan Lawrie Dagger Award of the Crime Writers’ Association for Raven Black: the winner receives £20,000, making it the world’s largest award for crime fiction. Her books have been translated into sixteen languages, she’s a bestseller in Scandinavia and Germany and her novels sell widely and to critical acclaim in the United States. And back here in the UK ITV has just completed filming of ‘Vera’, based on Ann’s Vera Stanhope mystery, ‘Hidden Depths’, with award winning actress Brenda Blethyn in the title rôle!

Ann is no lightweight new novelist in other words, and ‘Blue Lightning’ is beautifully-written, well-crafted, and will probably (and if you’re a crime-novel newbie like me definitely) keep you guessing right to the very end.

I’ll readily admit that I struggled with the first few chapters, but that’s not because they’re not interesting. I’m certain that’s down a) to my thinking that I didn’t have time to read a novel, and b) to the fact that it took me a while to get into the style of this type of book. Scenes need to be set, characters introduced, and red herrings laid before the real detective work can begin. I suspect that regular crime readers will love the way the rhythm of the novel changes and how the pace builds and builds. And, boy, does it build. I may have struggled at first, but I soon found myself looking forward to grabbing an hour or so to read on, and I galloped through the last 100 pages or so in one go and wouldn’t have put the book down if the house had fallen in around me.

The ending, by the way, is spectacular, tragic, and shocking and I’m still thinking about it a week later. Don’t be fooled by the photographs of Ann on her website: like the best writers she may look like a kind-hearted gentle sort of soul but underneath that smiling exterior there is a ruthless streak that makes her characterisations very real and her treatment of them surprisingly unsentimental: read the last chapters of ‘Blue Lightning’ and you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about…

As I said at the outset, Tim Cleeves sent me this book and perhaps that means I should declare an interest of sorts. However, as the occasional author has discovered in the past if we don’t like something on 10,000 Birds we say so regardless of ‘interest’. In all honesty I’m not likely to start describing myself as a die-hard crime-novel fan anytime soon, but I really enjoyed ‘Blue Lightning’ and would recommend it to anyone who just ‘likes reading books’.

Of course - for the sake of this review - I wish I was in a position to compare ‘Blue Lightning’ with other novels in the same genre, but I’m not. Is Ann as good a writer as, say, Colin Dexter? I have no idea. Is Jimmy Perez a detective that hardcore crime readers will want to discover? I’m sorry, I don’t know (I would think so, but I don’t actually know). Will the actual crime remind a crime-novel addict of another book and become devalued because of that fact? Ask me a question about field-guides and I may have an answer for you…

Is, however, ‘Blue Lightning’ well-written, involving, plausibly realised? Absolutely. Is it a good read regardless of whether or not you’re into crime novels? Definitely. Do you need to be a birder or have been to Fair Isle to enjoy it? No way. Can Ann Cleeves write a cracking tale? You bet. Would I recommend it? Without a moment’s hesitation (with perhaps one word of caution: this is not a children’s book and there is the occasional swear-word used - in context I hasten to add - though having said that nothing you wouldn’t hear walking past the average high-school playground).

Before I finish this review there is one other thing I’d like to mention. Neither Ann nor Tim have asked me to do this, but I would like to point readers to ‘Vaila’s Fund’, which was set up in the memory of Vaila Harvey, a sixteen year old Shetlander who died of cancer. Ann auctioned the chance to have a character in ‘Blue Lightning’ named after the highest bidder, and I do hope that readers of ‘Blue Lightning’ will bear both Ann’s and Douglas Barr’s (who paid 2500GBP to have a main character named after him) generosity in mind when they read this wonderful book.

Summary:
I’ve not read a crime/detective novel in decades but ‘Blue Lightning’ is a very well-written, atmospheric, and highly enjoyable book. The fact that the plot revolves around birds, birders and Fair Isle should be seen as a definite plus for birders and not something that should trouble non-birders in any way. Highly recommended (even for readers like me who know nothing whatsoever about this genre).

Blue Lightning by Ann Cleeves
Hardback: 340 pages
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 023001447X