The Two Rivers Series, Book 1: Long Call

Anne: A new detective, a new gender perspective and great crime mystery. I can’t wait to read more in the series. Highly recommend this book

Canada on Dec 01, 2023

OkieRo: I guess I kept waiting for Vera to show up. I couldn't
find interest in Matthew or his situation with his parents or his partner. I thought Ross was the classic macho buffoon, not of interest either. Jen same-classic story of single mother trying to make it as a cop with children. Disappointing. I'll give the series another try. Ultimately the mystery was good. Since it's Ann Sleeves I'll try number two.

United States on Nov 11, 2023

Claire Santoro: I don’t usually read detective novels, but this one held my interest. The characters were well-drawn, and the plot well-paced. I gave it four out of five stars because although well-written, I don’t think it rises to the level of literacy fiction, for which I reserve five stars. I would recommend it, however , to all fans ohe detective genre. This one’s a good read!

United States on Nov 09, 2023

Dianne DeWalt: I liked the book but I found it a little slow to start. Once it got moving, I enjoyed it. I will purchase the other books in this series.

United States on Oct 12, 2023

S Riaz: This is the first in a new series by Ann Cleeves, set in North Devon. The main character is D.I. Matthew Venn, who lives with his husband, Jonathan, who runs a community hub names The Woodyard. Matthew is estranged from his family, who beloned to a strict evangelical church, names the Barum Brethren, whose religious beliefs he rejected as a young man. Other members of Venn's team include Liverpudlian, D.S. Jen Rafferty, who relocated after leaving her abusive husband and Ross May, a family friend of D.C.I. Joe Oldham, and whom many suspect of spying for their superior officer.

It is the day of Matthew Venn's father's funeral, at which he is unwelcome, when he receives a call about a body found on the beach. The body turns out to be Simon Walden, known to be a homeless man, with a drink problem and mental health problems, whose life, and marriage, had fallen apart after he had killed a child. He had been taken in by Caroline Preece, whose father helped set up The Woodyard, and her friend and lodger, Gabby Henry, who is an artist. Matthew Venn debates stepping down from the investigation, due to the links with The Woodyard which Jonathan manages. However, before long, it...

United Kingdom on Jul 02, 2023

Greière: Originally, I felt that this first book of the Two Rivers series has possibilities that don't come through as they might. Plotting is skilled, I thought, but the characters don't evolve. Only their conditions change, in the end. The idyllic setting is not treated with sustained lyric intensity that might make a change in the reader or in a character, like in the protagonist Detective Inspector Matthew Venn or his sergeant, DS Jen Rafferty.

North Devon. Wooded, riparian, with an estuary where two rivers converge and open onto the Atlantic – the landscape is a main character here, like in the Vera Stanhope and Shetland series. Its description is dense with memories and secrets that tempt villains to go awry in order to protect their own social status.

I skimmed the few closing pages without fully reading them, not getting much more than the fact that in North Devon, not everyone is as lovely as the landscape suggests.

I found the novel flat but rich with potential. Maybe the TV version would be better.

Such was my original review. Later on, I streamed the whole series on BritBox and it was more than I dreamed of in reading the novel. Perhaps it was Ms....

United States on Sep 13, 2021

Richard Derus: Don't you hate being Right? It's the police's job, though, isn't it; they have to be Right or the consequences are so dire for so many people...innocent people who don't know their trust has been abused.

And that's why we read mysteries! They're ma'at in action, aren't they? Small demonstrations that when our Negative Confessions come before Osiris, Hapi won't need to open those toothy crocodilian jaws and end our existence. And I'm using ancient Egyptian examples for a very specific reason.

Matthew Venn is a new series character for mystery veteran Cleeves, she of <I>Vera</i> and Jimmy Perez (<I>Shetland</i>) fame. She's chosen England's most beautiful county (and her own native ground), North Devon, for her setting. She's decided the twenty-first century's not going to take her down without a fight, so Matthew's gay, and a lapsed member of one of the seemingly innumerable weirdo strict-constructionist christian sects. His involvement in matters churchly having perforce lapsed when he came out, he doesn't have contact with his former friends despite being back among them in his posting as a Detective Inspector. He does have a lot of community...

United States on Sep 06, 2021

Lizanne Lloyd: I have already enjoyed reading several of the Shetland and Vera novels, so I was looking forward to a new area and a different detective to meet via the pen of Ann Cleeves. Matthew Venn is a very different main character although equally determined to solve crimes. Having rejected his childhood background in a strict evangelical community, he has progressed in his police career and recently found happiness in marriage to his partner Jonathan. But this murder has taken place close to his home and investigations lead both to the Woodyard community centre run by Jonathan and also to members of his mother’s church.
Like all books by Ann Cleeves, characterisation is paramount. The victim, Simon, was a complex man not really understood by those he lived with. Even apparent bystanders raise questions in both the reader’s mind and Matthew’s. One important character, Lucy, has Down’s syndrome and her lively, independent spirit adds immensely to the plot. The weakest character is Jonathan. I didn’t feel I knew him or what mattered most to him. Matthew’s relationship with his detective constables, Jen and Ross, were essential aspects of the storyline and Jen’s well-rounded...

United Kingdom on Jul 10, 2021

Jacob Collins: The Long Call is a deeply engrossing story by Ann Cleeves. Set along the North Devon coastline, the body of a man with a stab wound is found on the beach. As Detective Matthew Venn takes a closer look into the past few weeks leading up to the man’s death, he uncovers some disturbing facts. As Matthew unpeels the layers of the victim’s life, it seems as though there is something a lot more sinister going on, and Matthew is determined to stop it.

This is the first case for Detective Matthew Venn and the first novel in a brand new series for Ann Cleeves. This book had long been on my radar before it was published, so I was pleased to have the opportunity to read it as soon as I did. Shamefully I’ve never read a book by Ann Cleeves before, but I will be rectifying that after reading her latest. I’m also sure that this book will win her an army of new fans.

The Long Call is a slow-burner. It does, however, develop into a highly engrossing, character-driven read. Matthew Venn is a character who has suffered in the past, mainly at the hands of his family. The opening of the novel sees him attending his father’s funeral but at a distance. We can see that there is...

United Kingdom on Oct 22, 2019

Alan in Durham: Having got to the end of the story in my reader I did the usual flick to the end to clear the percentage to mark it as read and was a little surprised to see her first 2 series had been lumped together with her standalones but this already listed as one of a new era.

So is this a review of a single book or the prospect of many more with a new set of characters?

I have read the two lowest reviews to date and saw the phrase that the book "falls into the modern day trap of trying to be inclusive and diverse, so that a normal, ordinary person cannot identify with the main character" and in the other DI Venn is "the dullest hero you could imagine, compare him to Jimmy Perez!"

Not sure we read the same book. Hence my question about what gets reviewed.

Ignoring who wrote it and what is expected of her in the future this hangs together reasonably well. The domestic abuse is so far out on the periphery that its revelation as a major factor came a bit too late for me to be addressed properly. So chipped a bit off a fifth star. As an Ann Cleeves standalone [which it is until the next] I think it compares favourably with both The Sleeping and the Dead and Burial of...

United Kingdom on Sep 16, 2019