I did really love this book, but I have to say that I actually prefer the characterisation on the BBC show better than the books. I felt like Jimmy wasn’t as clever or insightful as the tv character, and we rarely got his POV - it was mostly side characters, Sandy (who drives me NUTS!) and Willow, who was also pretty irritating. I felt like the author told us more than she showed us.

The writing itself felt amateurish. I’ve never read an Ann Cleeves book before, so perhaps this is just her style, but it was so simplistic as to almost feel like it was written by a child. “Jimmy felt scared.” I mean, those were the types of sentence structures we were getting. It felt like not much effort was put into the actual writing.

Also felt the characterisations were not consistent. We were told one thing about a character, only to have it directly contradicted a few chapters later. Honestly, if I hadn’t had the characters from the show in the back of my head the whole time, I wouldn’t have felt any connection to them at all.

I feel really conflicted about this book. The mystery was good, but all the things I love about the show, like Jimmy’s relationship with Cassie and Duncan, the camaraderie between the cops...it was all missing. I’m assuming the first four books must be better for them to have been optioned as a tv show.