The Raging Storm

Starred review from July 3, 2023
Bestseller Cleeves’s outstanding third Matthew Venn novel (following 2021’s The Heron’s Cry) sees the detective returning to a small village on the northern English coast to solve a pair of murders. In the middle of a storm one September afternoon, Jem Rosco—sailor, bon vivant, and local legend—enters a pub in his misty hometown of Greystone to await a visitor he won’t name. A few days later, a local rescue crew responding to an anonymous distress call discovers Rosco’s lifeless body in an anchored dinghy. Det. Insp. Matthew Venn and his bickering sergeants are called from Devon to investigate. Venn is less than enthusiastic: Greystone is home to the Brethren, a religious sect his family once belonged to, and he left unceremoniously several years earlier. As the detective and his officers dig into Rosco’s past, local magistrate Barty Parker—husband of Rosco’s first love, Nell—turns up dead as well. Then Nell herself disappears, and pressure mounts to identify the killer before the body count climbs. Cleeves crafts a devilishly intricate mystery that will surprise even seasoned genre fans, and Venn remains an appealing lead every bit as memorable as the author’s Vera Stanhope or Jimmy Perez. Cleeves’s fans and newcomers alike will be hungry for the next entry.