Jimmy is born and bred on the islands despite his foreign name. It is the jurisdiction of Jimmy Perez, the local copper, but with a murder investigation the big guns are called in from the mainland as well. Magnus, who was thought to have taken and killed a young girl some years earlier, is the suspect again. The next day one is found dead in the snow. It is New Years – Hogmanay – and two teenage girls, on a dare, knock on Magnus’ door late in the night. We find Magnus Tait in his cottage, over-looking the rural scene of Ravenswick, a hamlet near the town of Lerwick. Not my idea of fun but obviously spectacular – and a great scene in the novel – the night on which yet another young girl goes missing.īut, back to the beginning. Then on to a long night of drinking and carousing. Up Helly Aa is an island wide festival, featuring residents dressed in costume, the leader, the Jarl wearing a raven-winged helmet, ax and shield, with the “Vikings” following, dragging their leader to his doomed “Galley” which is then set ablaze. But not for the Up Helly Aa Day celebrations that are described in Raven Black. Taking out my old Canadian Oxford School Atlas, at the cottage, I saw that the Shetland Islands are well north of Orkney – places I would love to visit one day. The Shetland Quartet series takes place, of course, on Shetland, the largest of the Shetland Islands.

I am not a fan of novels where characters are stalked – but I stuck with it through that first scene and was into the beginning of a very good mystery novel. I was slightly apprehensive when the book began with a man who may have killed a young girl many years in the past, and may be the killer of another, and may be stalking yet another. Sometime in the past year there was a rave review for the third in her Shetland Quartet mystery series - so I ordered the first, Raven Black, to see what it was like – and like it I did. Why I had never before read a book by Ann Cleeves until this past summer I do not know.

Raven Black by Ann Cleeves