Silent voices

The dead cannot speak . . .Silent Voices is the fourth book in Ann Cleeves' Vera Stanhope series - which is now a major ITV detective drama starring Brenda Blethyn, VERA. When DI Vera Stanhope finds the body of a woman in the sauna room of her local gym, she wonders briefly if, for once in her life, she's uncovered a simple death from natural causes. Then Vera spots ligature marks around the victim's throat - death is never that simple . . . Vera revels being back in charge of an investigation again, working with Sergeant Joe Ashworth to find a motive. While Joe struggles to reconcile his home life with the demands of the case, death has never made Vera feel so alive. The duo investigates the victim's past and discovers a shocking case, involving a young child. Probing the secretive community, they try to stop a killer in the present who can't seem to let go of the past . . . Also available in the Vera Stanhope series are The Crow Trap, Telling Tales, Hidden Depths and The Glass Room. Ann Cleeves' Shetland series (BBC television drama SHETLAND) contains five titles, of which Dead Water is the most recent.