Thin Air is set in The Shetland Isles the story centres on a wedding and a legend of the ghost of a young girl lost to the sea in 1930. When one of the wedding guests, a bridesmaid is reported missing Jimmy Perez and Sandy Wilson are sent to help find her. The discovery of the missing woman’s body in a loch turns a hunt for a missing woman into a murder investigation. Willow Reeves joins Perez and Wilson to lead the investigation.
I read a lot of crime fiction as well as writing some. Thin Air is the first of Ann Cleeves’ Shetland series I have read; I found it a difficult read. The story seemed to take a good while to get into its stride. I had the impression the author started the book stopped then took up the story later fitting bits in as she went. It is an interesting story set in the far North of the British Isles, a part I would like to visit. Although the pictures of the weather, terrain and communities are well drawn there seems to be a tiredness in the telling of the story. The plot is interesting and convoluted, and the characters are believable but it took me a long while to read it.
I don’t know if all the Shetland stories are written in the same way a steady gathering of threads or if this one is less lively than some of the others, I will have to see. Ann Cleeves writes well but I preferred other Ann Cleeves books I have read.
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