Ann Cleeves Books in Order: Every Series + Vera & Shetland

By T.L. BransonMystery

Looking for Ann Cleeves books in order? I’ve got the full list here by series, including Vera Stanhope, Shetland, Matthew Venn, the Palmer-Jones books, Inspector Ramsay, standalones, short fiction, and TV adaptations.

Cleeves is best known for Vera and Shetland, but there’s a lot more to her bibliography than those two series. I think the easiest way to read through her work is by series first, then standalones and shorter pieces after that.

Jump to:

Vera Stanhope Books

Vera Stanhope is Cleeves’s Northumberland detective, and she’s one of the big reasons so many readers find Cleeves in the first place. I’ve included the Vera books here, but I also have a dedicated Vera Stanhope books in order guide if you want the deeper series-specific version.

  1. The Crow Trap (1999)
  2. Telling Tales (2005)
  3. Hidden Depths (2007)
  4. Silent Voices (2011)
  5. The Glass Room (2012)
  6. Harbour Street (2014)
  7. The Moth Catcher (2015)
  8. The Seagull (2017)
  9. Frozen (2020) (Short Story)
  10. The Darkest Evening (2020)
  11. The Woman on the Island (2022) (Short Story, previously published as “Hector’s Other Woman”)
  12. The Rising Tide (2022)
  13. The Dark Wives (2024)

Shetland Island Books

The Shetland Island books follow Detective Jimmy Perez through murder cases shaped by island life, old loyalties, and the isolation of Scotland’s northern communities. These are the original Shetland novels before Cleeves returned to Perez and Willow Reeves in a related spin-off.

  1. Raven Black (2006)
  2. White Nights (2008)
  3. Red Bones (2009)
  4. Blue Lightning (2010)
  5. The Soothmoothers (2010) (Short Story)
  6. Dead Water (2013)
  7. Thin Air (2014)
  8. Too Good to Be True (2016) (Novella)
  9. Cold Earth (2016)
  10. Wild Fire (2018)
  11. Missing in the Snow (2023) (Short Story)
  12. The Lonely Man (2025) (Short Story)

Jimmy Perez and Willow Reeves Series

The Jimmy Perez and Willow Reeves series brings Perez back after the original Shetland books. Willow Reeves first appeared in Dead Water, and this spin-off gives the two characters a new case outside the original Shetland sequence.

  1. The Killing Stones (2025)

Shetland Island Non-Fiction Books

This companion book looks at the real Shetland behind the novels, with photographs, places, seasons, wildlife, and local history connected to the islands.

  1. Ann Cleeves’ Shetland (2015) (Non-Fiction)

Other Ann Cleeves Series

Palmer-Jones Books

The Palmer-Jones books are Cleeves’s early birdwatching mysteries. George and Molly Palmer-Jones travel through quiet places that usually don’t stay quiet for long.

  1. A Bird in the Hand (1986)
  2. Come Death and High Water (1988)
  3. Murder in Paradise (1988)
  4. A Prey to Murder (1989)
  5. Another Man’s Poison (1992)
  6. Sea Fever (1993)
  7. The Mill on the Shore (1994)
  8. High Island Blues (1996)

Inspector Ramsay Books

The Inspector Ramsay books are Northumberland mysteries about small communities, old secrets, and quiet places where everyone knows more than they admit.

  1. A Lesson in Dying (1990)
  2. Murder in My Backyard (1991)
  3. A Day in the Death of Dorothea Cassidy (1992)
  4. Killjoy (1993)
  5. The Healers (1995)
  6. The Baby Snatcher (1997)

Matthew Venn Books

The Matthew Venn books are set in North Devon and follow a quieter, more introspective detective than Vera or Perez. The cases still have Cleeves’s usual interest in community, landscape, and secrets that refuse to stay buried.

  1. The Long Call (2019)
  2. The Heron’s Cry (2021)
  3. The Girls on the Shore (2022) (Novella)
  4. The Raging Storm (2023)
  5. The Dying Light (2026)

Ann Cleeves Standalone Books

Cleeves also has a couple of standalone novels outside her main detective series.

  1. The Sleeping and the Dead (2001)
  2. Burial of Ghosts (2003)

Ann Cleeves Short Stories, Collections & Anthologies

Cleeves has written a lot of short fiction, and some of it is tucked away in anthologies or limited editions. You’ll see the most important series-connected stories in the lists above, but these are the other collections and anthology pieces worth knowing about.

  1. A Winter’s Tale (1992) (Short Story)
  2. The Harmless Pursuits of Archibald Stamp (1995) (Short Story)
  3. The Plater (2001) (Short Story)
  4. Sad Girls (2001) (Short Story)
  5. A Rough Guide to Tanga (2002) (Short Story)
  6. Games for Winter (2003) (Short Story)
  7. Owl Wars (2004) (Short Story)
  8. The Midwife’s Assistant (2005) (Short Story)
  9. Basic Skills (2006) (Short Story)
  10. Going Back (2007) (Short Story)
  11. Beastly Pleasures (2010) (Short Story)
  12. The Habit of Silence (2011) (Vera Stanhope Short Story)
  13. Drop Dead Gorgeous (2012) (Vera Stanhope Short Story)
  14. Secrets of Soil (2013) (Willow Reeves Short Story)
  15. Offshore (2014) (Short Story Collection)
  16. The Starlings & Other Stories (2015) (Anthology)
  17. Dreaming of Rain and Peter Lovesey (2016) (Short Story in Motives for Murder)
  18. The Queen of Mystery (2016) (Short Story)
  19. The Return (2017) (Short Story in Bloody Scotland)
  20. Moses and the Locked Tent Mystery (2018) (Short Story in Ten Year Stretch)
  21. Written in Blood (2020) (Short Story)
  22. Wild Swimming (2021) (Short Story in Many Deadly Returns)
  23. Sleeping Beauty (2025) (Short Story in Playing Dead)

Ann Cleeves Book to Screen Adaptations

Several Ann Cleeves books have been adapted for TV, with Vera and Shetland being the best-known.

Vera adapts the Vera Stanhope books, with Brenda Blethyn starring as DCI Vera Stanhope. The ITV series ran for fourteen series and became closely tied to the North East setting of the books.

Shetland began as an adaptation of Cleeves’s Jimmy Perez novels. Douglas Henshall originally starred as Perez, and the TV series later continued with Ashley Jensen as DI Ruth Calder and Alison O’Donnell as Tosh.

The Long Call adapts the first Matthew Venn book. It’s a four-part series starring Ben Aldridge as Matthew Venn.

About Ann Cleeves

Ann Cleeves is a British crime writer best known for the Vera Stanhope, Shetland, and Matthew Venn mysteries. Her books are especially good at making the setting feel like part of the mystery, whether that’s Northumberland, Shetland, Orkney, or North Devon.

Cleeves began writing after spending time on Fair Isle and Hilbre, and that love of remote places still shows up throughout her work. In 2017, she received the Diamond Dagger from the Crime Writers’ Association, one of the major honors in British crime writing.

Looking for similar books in order?

If you want more mystery authors and reading-order guides like this one, start with my Mystery Books in Order index.

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