Wild Fire (Shetland – final)

Author/Guide: Ann Cleeves

Why a Booktrail?

2000s: Shetland: Welcoming. Wild. Remote.

ISBN: 978-1447278245
Genre: Crime, Police Procedural

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What you need to know before your trail

Drawn in by the reputation of the islands, an English family move to the area, eager to give their autistic son a better life.

But when a young nanny’s body is found hanging in the barn of their home, rumours of her affair with the husband begin to spread like wild fire.

With suspicion raining down on the family, DI Jimmy Perez is called in to investigate, knowing that it will mean the return to the islands of his on-off lover and boss Willow Reeves, who will run the case.

Perez is facing the most disturbing investigation of his career. Is he ready for what is to come?

Locations

Reset

Scotland- Orkney
D: Kirkwall
E: Stromness

Travel Guide

Shetland

Deltaness

Shame it’s fictional as the beach there sounds lovely, A bonfire for Helly Aa and the sound of the sea in the background. Imagine the views!

Deltaness is fictional as is Ravenswick but there are plenty of places to visit and experience as the book suggests:

“Nothing much happened in Deltaness. It was too far from Lerwick for an easy night out, and the buses stopped long before the bars closed. The night was clear and still and the light drained slowly away. In another month it would be midsummer.”

” When she was a child, she’d longed for boredom, for quiet normal days free from tension….. Now she thought, she’s inherited a need for excitement, to provoke a response from the people in her life. A need to make things happen.”

Then there’s the house where Helena finds strange objects appearing and where a secret is discovered:

“ Perhaps he’s been afraid of something overblown and tasteless, a simple Shetland croft house expanded until the original was unrecognizable, more suitable for Houston that Deltaness.

Moncrieff has described this as a great edifice and Perez sees it’s being built upon and modernised, whitewashed and a house which disappears into the hillside.

Booktrailer Review

Susan: @thebooktrailer

What a fitting tribute and farewell to Jimmy Perez. Having followed him and his cases since book one, this is the last in the series and there’s a very fitting ending although it’s a new start for many characters.

As for the case before that though. An interesting one. A woman comes to see Perez at home as she knew his wife, knows Cassie and has a problem. She moved to the village recently and now lives in a hous where a man was previously murdered. Now that barn, the scene of the crime is the scene of something more and a case involving regret, despair and…well to tell you anything else is to give the game away and you have to say farewell to Jimmy yourself.

As ever, the setting of Lerwick and Shetland with a visit to Orkney is aptly and nicely done. The author loves this part of the world and it shows. Nearby islands are referred to, historical sites, local landmarks yes but also the names of birds, the type of food, sayings particular to the area, and in this novel, the Summer Solstice and the Helly Aa festival.

A roaring fire and fitting ending of a novel. Bye Jimmy, we’ll miss you!