Why a Booktrail?
2000s: Set in the autumn – a time of bird migration, storms and a murder…..
Blue Lightning (Shetland 4)
What you need to know before your trail
Shetland Detective Jimmy Perez returns home to the Fair Isles to introduce his fiancée, Fran, to his parents. He’s expecting a nice time and hopes that Fran will see the beauty of the place he grew up.
The island is renowned for its landscape and wildlife and there’s a famous Fair Isles Bird Observatory there. However, something very expected and horrific is discovered there – a woman’s body.
Jimmy may be the only one to help discover what happened for the island has been cut off from the mainland by a sudden and violent autumn storm, No boats in or out and so Jimmy along with Fran’s help has to rely on good old fashioned luck and common sense to try and solve a murder.
Travel Guide
With storms come great changes and dark clouds on the horizon. The storms in autumn in Shetland are quite extreme as well as stunning with the water and the remote landscape framing the, at times, dramatic performance and background noise of the weather.
The setting is Fair Isle – Jimmy has returned with his fiancee Fran where he plans to introduce her to his family. The island is famous for its beauty and its jumpers amongst other things but many people know Fair Isle for its bird life. So fact and fiction meet when in the novel the warden of the field centre is murdered. Jimmy Perez is the one to investigate on his home turf – and his own history is moored quite literally on this island. He is said to have an ancestor who was shipwrecked from a ship called the El Gran Grifon – part of the Spanish Armada. This wreck is actually situated near the Fair Isle so Jimmy will no doubt show you where this is and the legend behind it if you ever meet him for real .
To make the novel even more evocative any visitor to Shetland should visit the new Fair Isle Bird observatory and hotel. The island is famous for its work into birds and particular puffins which add colour to the sometimes dark landscape.
“During September, the place had been full of birdwatchers. September was peak migration time and a week of easterly winds had brought in two species.”
Turns out the type of bird which comes to the island depends on which way the wind blows….There is a lot to be learned about birds here and it makes for a very fascinating read. You can tell Ann lives and breathes this background as she describes it with such passion.
Booktrail Boarding Pass Information:
Twitter: @AnnCleeves
Facebook: /anncleeves
Web: anncleeves.com
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