Introducing Detective Inspector Vera Stanhope.

The Crow Trap is the first book in Ann Cleeves’s Vera Stanhope detective series – which is now a major ITV crime drama starring Brenda Blethyn, Vera.

Everyone has something to hide . . .

Three very different women come together at an isolated cottage on the North Pennines to complete an environmental survey. Three women who each know the meaning of betrayal . . .

Rachael, the team leader, is still reeling after a double betrayal by her lover and boss. Anne, a botanist, sees the survey as a chance to indulge in a little deception of her own. And then there is Grace, a strange, uncommunicative young woman, hiding plenty of her own secrets.

Rachael is the first to arrive at the cottage, but when she gets there she is shocked to discover an apparent suicide. But then another death occurs, and a fourth woman enters the picture – the unconventional Detective Inspector Vera Stanhope, who must piece together the truth from these women’s tangled lives . . .

Enjoy more of Vera Stanhope’s investigations with Telling Tales, Hidden Depths, and Silent Voices.

'One of Britain's best crime writers' – Daily Express

'Cleeves is quietly carving out a reputation as the new Queen of Crime' – Sunday Mirror

'Nobody does unsettling undercurrents better than Ann Cleeves' – Val McDermid, author of the Karen Pirie series