YOU never know where you’ll end up with author Ann Cleeves. An ongoing anticipatory game for crime fiction fans is guessing where her next book will take us. Or rather, which of her characters will be leading our way. Maybe dour  Jimmy Perez will be donning his monkey jacket to traipse around the wind-blown Shetlands. Perhaps we will be watching heart-of-gold grumps Vera Stanhope jollying her crew over Northumberland’s moorlands and coast. Or, more recently, the rather pallid and low-key Matthew Venn coping with community rifts along the North Devon estuaries and marshlands. Each are distinctive. Each has an appeal,… Continue reading

WITH Covid and staff shortages becoming the default excuse for poor service and faulty products it is sad to see the malaise spreading to the world of publishing. Errors there are so visible and so irritating to readers. For publishers they are so difficult and costly  to correct.  In specialist areas, editing shortfalls can bring onerous penalties and litigation. Not all that long ago even the merest typo was a rarity. Now, at least a couple or so such errors can be expected in the average bookshop-bought volume. Regardless of how well-established and accepted is the publisher. And all bets… Continue reading