Ann's Shetland series bring us DI Jimmy Perez, investigating in the mysterious, dark, and beautiful Shetland Islands.

When I finished the series, I realized that I DID want to give the books a try [I had read the first one, which is what led me to the TV show] and so I dove in. Now residents of the East Yorkshire village of Elvet are disturbed to hear of new evidence proving Jeanie's innocence. We also follow Jeanie's father who is a broken man after realizing that his daughter was innocent and he didn't see her or defend her. Ten years after Jeanie Long has been convicted for the murder of 15 year old Abigail Mantel, Jeanie commits suicide after being turned down again for parole.Ten-years-ago when Emma Winter moved to the village of Elvet, East Yorkshire and her early days were filled by her sole friendship, with the vibrant and ethereal beauty of best friend, fifteen-year-old Abigail Mantel. The much younger girlfriend of Keith, Jeanie Long, was sentenced to life imprisonment, unable to offer a corroborated alibi and given her fractious relationship with Abigail and Keith asking her to move out of the home she had spent three-months living at. Now a civilian, Dan’s past is shrouded in mystery, but the arrival of Emma’s self-contained and studious brother, Christopher, who tells of his long held devoted love of Abigail makes Emma realise that perhaps she wasn’t quite so close to her friend as she believed at the time.

Telling Tales begins slowly as the author establishes the background to the crime but then Vera arrives on the scene and the real action begins. Emma Bennett and Abigail Mantel have developed a sort of close friendship or at least Emma would like to think it was close.As Inspector Vera Stanhope makes fresh enquiries on the peninsula and villagers are hauled back to a time they hoped to forget, tensions begin to mount. As Vera mobilises Jeanie’s father, a man who thought his own daughter guilty, and treats him with humanity and respect, she scours and scrutinises the Elvet grapevine for both scurrilous rumour and truth. This second book in the Vera Stanhope series was better than the first, but I think there’s still lots of room for improvement. DI Stanhope may be confident and very proud but crucially she also recognises her own fallibility, and berates herself for missing the obvious (although it is never quite so obvious to her readers as to Vera). They were the only residents, there was no mains electricity or water and access to the mainland was at low tide across the shore.