REVIEW: THE LONG CALL, BY ANN CLEEVES

 

In North Devon, where two rivers converge and run into the sea, Detective Matthew Venn stands outside the church as his estranged father’s funeral takes place. On the day Matthew left the strict evangelical community he grew up in, he lost his family too.

Now, as he turns and walks away again, he receives a call from one of his team. A body has been found on the beach nearby: a man with a tattoo of an albatross on his neck, stabbed to death.

The case calls Matthew back to the people and places of his past, as deadly secrets hidden at their hearts are revealed, and his new life is forced into a collision course with the world he thought he’d left behind.

 

My Thoughts: The Long Call reeled me in from the first page, showing the characters, the settings, and the intensity of the interactions between them all. The sea, the village, and the inhabitants felt like additional players in the story.

A murder brings Matthew Venn into his own past and the people who cast him away due to his rejection of their beliefs. Would he be able to stay objective when their paths collided?

His investigation takes him more deeply into the Woodyard, a day care facility where his partner Jonathan works, and where the victim also spent time as a chef.

As he probes the activities of the various administrators, volunteers, and employees, we start to see how so many things are connected. It is a challenge to sort through the clues and the people involved, and for a while, I was suspicious of almost everyone. In the end, I was stunned…and then not so much. The conspiracy ran deep, its tentacles reaching out to engulf so many. A five star read for me.***My e-ARC came from the publisher via NetGalley