Before Shetland and Vera, Ann Cleeves wrote the Inspector Ramsay series featuring a talented, brilliant detective—now available for the first time in the US.
The Inspector Ramsay series is a set of six classic British crime novels featuring Detective Inspector Stephen Ramsay, set in and around Northumberland, England. The books were originally published in the 1990s and showcase Ramsay’s methodical investigations into murders in small towns and rural communities, often revealing tangled personal relationships and hidden tensions beneath quiet village life.
A Macmillan Audio production from Minotaur Books.
Almost everyone in Heppleburn either hated or feared the viper-tongued Harold Medburn. Inspector Ramsay is convinced it was the headmaster’s enigmatic wife but Jack Robson, school governor and caretaker, is determined to prove her innocence.
With the help of his restless daughter Patty, Jack digs into the secrets of Heppleburn, and uncovers a cesspit of lies, adultery, blackmail and madness . . .
MY THOUGHTS:
Headmaster Harold Medburn has been murdered and Inspector Stephen Ramsay is tasked to find his killer. Who is the guilty party? The more he learns about the man, the more questions he has. It is soon made clear that Medburn was unliked by several people leaving Ramsay to decipher clues as to the killer’s identity.
As things soon turn out, it seems that Ramsay is not the only one investigating the murder. When a woman is arrested as the prime suspect, caretaker Jack Robson at the school where the victim worked, steps in and also begins looking for the murderer.
As A Lesson in Dying is the first book in the Inspector Ramsay series, the setting is built by strong character development. It is almost as is this first book in the series presents a cast of characters and sets them around a table in order to identify the killer. I love the way this was done in this book.
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When detective Stephen Ramsay starts asking questions in the village, a more ambiguous picture begins to emerge. Yes, old Mrs. Parry was loved by everyone, but sometimes her kindness had caused trouble. Yes, her two nephews were devoted to her, but they didn’t really want her interfering in their rather complicated personal lives. Even among her neighbors, Alice Parry’s helpfulness had sometimes misfired. And after her death, tension tight as a clenched fist grips the uneasy village.
Meanwhile, the suspects keep rolling in, and Heppleburn’s friendly neighborhood killer continues his nasty piece of work . . .
As the small town of Otterbridge prepares for its summer carnival, Inspector Stephen Ramsay begins a painstaking reconstruction of Dorothea's last hours. He soon discovers that she had taken on a number of deserving cases—a sick and lonely old woman, a disturbed adolescent, a compulsive gambler, a single mother with a violent boyfriend and a child in care—and even her close family have their secrets to hide. All these people are haunted, in one way or another, by Dorothea's goodness. But which of them could have possibly wanted her dead?
It is not until a second body is discovered that Ramsay starts to understand how Dorothea lived—and why she died. With the carnival festivities in full swing and dusk falling in Otterbridge, Ramsay's murder investigation reaches its chilling climax . . .
DESCRIPTION:
Gabriella Preston is found in the boot of a car, lying curled on her side like a child asleep. She is dead. The car belongs to Gus Lynch. Gus Lynch is the director of Hallowgate's Youth Theatre, Gabriella his female lead.
Inspector Ramsay and Sergeant Hunter are called in to assist the local police who have their hands full with an outbreak of joy-riding. Another death and an escalation of violence among the joy-riders threaten mayhem. Against a background of spiralling disorder Ramsay realises what could have provoked someone to kill - and to kill again.
First published June 25, 1993.
DESCRIPTION:
News of the murder came to Inspector Stephen Ramsay early on Monday morning: isolated farmer Ernie Bowles was found lying on his kitchen floor, gruesomely strangled.f
Ramsey fears this case will not be simple. In his experience, most murders are straightforward: an explosion of family pressure, the loss of control in a fight. But Bowles seems to have kept himself to himself and had lived alone since his mother’s death. A seemingly unconnected women is then found strangled too—surely two such killings in the same locality are more than just chilling coincidence?
When Ramsay hears of a third suspicious death, a very tenuous link between the victims takes on a new importance, for all were connected in some way to the Alternative Therapy Center in Mittingford. Could one of the healers be a killer?
First published January 1, 1995.
MY THOUGHTS:
Are they healing, or are they harming? Inspector Ramsay and Sergeant Hunter are called away to another station when a sudden spate of murders appears to be tied to a healing clinic.
The setting is immediately intriguing—a clinic devoted to “healing” that may be anything but. Listening to the audiobook, I found myself smiling once or twice at how the fervor behind natural healing really comes through. Paired with the murders, it creates an unsettling but effective balance.
I loved this fifth book in the Inspector Ramsay series. Ramsay is an excellent investigator, and his kindness and patience with those he questions truly stand out. However, as I mentioned in my review of book four, Killjoy, I am still not a fan of Hunter. That said, Ann Cleeves wrote this series decades ago, and I’ve loved every book so far.
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Fifteen-year-old Marilyn turns up alone and frightened on Inspector Ramsay’s doorstep so he takes the young girl home to the isolated coastal community known as the Headland. And in the Howes’ dark and cluttered kitchen they find Kathleen safe and apparently well, though acting strange.
Six months later, Ramsay has more or less forgotten the incident, busy as he is on the trail of a local child abductor. Until he receives news that Mrs. Howe has disappeared once more. And for the second time he is drawn into the strange relationships of the families living on the lonely Headland . . . when a woman’s body washes up on the beach.
Ann Cleeves is the author behind ITV’s Vera and BBC One’s Shetland. She has written over thirty novels, and is the creator of detectives Vera Stanhope and Jimmy Perez – characters loved both on screen and in print. Her books have now sold millions of copies worldwide. In 2012 she was inducted into the CWA Crime Thriller Awards Hall of Fame and is the 2017 recipient of the CWA Diamond Dagger, the highest honour in British crime writing. Ann lives in North Tyneside.
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