The Long Call: Now a major ITV series starring Ben Aldridge as Detective Matthew Venn (Two Rivers)
£4.70
Now a major ITV series, The Long Call, adapted for television by screenwriter Kelly Jones and starring Ben Aldridge.
The Long Call is the No.1 bestselling first novel in the Two Rivers series from Sunday Times bestseller and creator of Vera and Shetland, Ann Cleeves.
In North Devon, where the rivers Taw and Torridge converge and run into the sea, Detective Matthew Venn stands outside the church as his father’s funeral takes place. The day Matthew turned his back on the strict evangelical community in which he grew up, he lost his family too.
Now he’s back, not just to mourn his father at a distance, but to take charge of his first major case in the Two Rivers region; a complex place not quite as idyllic as tourists suppose.
A body has been found on the beach near to Matthew’s new home: a man with the tattoo of an albatross on his neck, stabbed to death.
Finding the killer is Venn’s only focus, and his team’s investigation will take him straight back into the community he left behind, and the deadly secrets that lurk there.
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Additional information
| Publisher | Macmillan (5 Sept. 2019) |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| File size | 2907 KB |
| Text-to-Speech | Enabled |
| Screen Reader | Supported |
| Enhanced typesetting | Enabled |
| X-Ray | Enabled |
| Word Wise | Enabled |
| Sticky notes | On Kindle Scribe |
| Print length | 384 pages |
by S Riaz
This is the first in a new series by Ann Cleeves, set in North Devon. The main character is D.I. Matthew Venn, who lives with his husband, Jonathan, who runs a community hub names The Woodyard. Matthew is estranged from his family, who beloned to a strict evangelical church, names the Barum Brethren, whose religious beliefs he rejected as a young man. Other members of Venn’s team include Liverpudlian, D.S. Jen Rafferty, who relocated after leaving her abusive husband and Ross May, a family friend of D.C.I. Joe Oldham, and whom many suspect of spying for their superior officer.
It is the day of Matthew Venn’s father’s funeral, at which he is unwelcome, when he receives a call about a body found on the beach. The body turns out to be Simon Walden, known to be a homeless man, with a drink problem and mental health problems, whose life, and marriage, had fallen apart after he had killed a child. He had been taken in by Caroline Preece, whose father helped set up The Woodyard, and her friend and lodger, Gabby Henry, who is an artist. Matthew Venn debates stepping down from the investigation, due to the links with The Woodyard which Jonathan manages. However, before long, it becomes clear that the murder investigation points to The Woodyard and, when a woman at the centre with Downes Syndrome goes missing, Matthew is under pressure to solve the case quickly.
I loved the setting of this book and look forward to reading on. I particularly enjoyed Lucy and Chrissie the two characters with Downes Syndrome – my uncle had Downes and so it was excellent to see people with learning differences represented in fiction with such sympathy and as intelligent, capable and brave. Highly recommended.
by Alan in Durham
Having got to the end of the story in my reader I did the usual flick to the end to clear the percentage to mark it as read and was a little surprised to see her first 2 series had been lumped together with her standalones but this already listed as one of a new era.
So is this a review of a single book or the prospect of many more with a new set of characters?
I have read the two lowest reviews to date and saw the phrase that the book “falls into the modern day trap of trying to be inclusive and diverse, so that a normal, ordinary person cannot identify with the main character” and in the other DI Venn is “the dullest hero you could imagine, compare him to Jimmy Perez!”
Not sure we read the same book. Hence my question about what gets reviewed.
Ignoring who wrote it and what is expected of her in the future this hangs together reasonably well. The domestic abuse is so far out on the periphery that its revelation as a major factor came a bit too late for me to be addressed properly. So chipped a bit off a fifth star. As an Ann Cleeves standalone [which it is until the next] I think it compares favourably with both The Sleeping and the Dead and Burial of Ghosts. I was surprised that Porteous in the former never made a second book and more!
The problem of reading this against the background of Vera and Shetland is simply numbers. About 8 books each and both made into television series with very few of the book characters surviving the transfer. So no comparison unless with book 1 of each is reasonable, surely.
DI Venn is still an undeveloped character so it is too much to look at Perez and use that as a criticism outside of the actual story being told. But if I do, I remember the book Perez lacking confidence at times, being diffident and certainly not being Douglas Henshall. Part way into this book I thought Venn had too many characteristics of book Perez and even Palmer-Jones in perceived mental weakness and for a long period in the book that she was re-inventing Stephen Ramsay for steady hand on the tiller.
The Jen Rafferty character seems to be another strong female personality and Cleeves has used these in the past in Mollie Palmer-Jones and Willow Reeves to dominate stories. Not a Vera but another female with a history albeit with a husband as a villain and not a neglectful father.
I give it 4 for the story, nothing for not being Jimmy Perez et al and nothing for not being a television series, yet.
by Lizanne Lloyd
I have already enjoyed reading several of the Shetland and Vera novels, so I was looking forward to a new area and a different detective to meet via the pen of Ann Cleeves. Matthew Venn is a very different main character although equally determined to solve crimes. Having rejected his childhood background in a strict evangelical community, he has progressed in his police career and recently found happiness in marriage to his partner Jonathan. But this murder has taken place close to his home and investigations lead both to the Woodyard community centre run by Jonathan and also to members of his mother’s church.
Like all books by Ann Cleeves, characterisation is paramount. The victim, Simon, was a complex man not really understood by those he lived with. Even apparent bystanders raise questions in both the reader’s mind and Matthew’s. One important character, Lucy, has Down’s syndrome and her lively, independent spirit adds immensely to the plot. The weakest character is Jonathan. I didn’t feel I knew him or what mattered most to him. Matthew’s relationship with his detective constables, Jen and Ross, were essential aspects of the storyline and Jen’s well-rounded personality, in particular, brought events to life.
I anticipate many more intriguing stories about this sensitive Detective Inspector and his team in a rather idyllic location.