Review of THE HERON'S CRY by Ann Cleeves (New Release)

 3.5 Stars

This is the second installment of the Two Rivers series set in North Devon where the Taw and Torridge rivers converge and empty into the Atlantic. 

The investigative team of DI Matthew Venn, DS Jen Rafferty, and DC Ross May are initially faced with the murder of Nigel Yeo.  He was killed by a shard of glass from a vase made by his daughter Eve, a glassblower.  Nigel was investigating patients’ complaints about care received from the health system, in particular whether the death by suicide of a young man could have been prevented; Matthew suspects the motive for Nigel’s death may lie in something he discovered in the course of his probing.  Then a second, virtually identical, murder occurs.  It not only complicates the investigation but also ramps up the pressure on the team to find the murderer. 

The investigation is interesting and the reader will be kept guessing.  There are twists and turns, especially when a suicide muddies the picture.  I wish there had been fewer subplots – and fewer dead bodies – and more focus on the two obviously connected deaths.  The resolution isn’t totally convincing; the killer’s motive works initially but is less persuasive subsequently.   

What I enjoyed most is the character development.  Jen struggles to find a work-family balance.  Matthew works at becoming less rigid and even tries mending his relationship with his mother.  Ross continues to be annoying; he wants to be like his mentor with “his determination not to be cowed, to get what he wanted.”  He coerces his wife into having a drink with him because he senses some tension in her, but then he keeps “a seed of anger in his mind, because he was her husband, and she shouldn’t have made him feel like that, so anxious and so impotent.  So needy.”  At the end, there is a hint that he has realized some of his shortcomings, but since we do not see him afterwards, there is no proof that he has indeed had an epiphany. 

Characters from the first novel, The Long Call, reappear.  Jonathan, Matthew’s husband, becomes involved, but also Lucy Braddick who played an important role in the first book.  I would advise readers to read The Long Call first because the background provided will add to the enjoyment of the second book.

I ended my review of The Long Call by stating, “There is little to distinguish this book from a standard murder mystery.  The element that might entice me to read the next installment is the characters and the relationships among those characters.”  These comments are also an apt ending for my review of The Heron’s Cry.

Note:  I received a digital galley from the publisher via NetGalley.