I can't really review this book as successfully as I'd like because I listened to the BBC radio dramatisation of it, which was significantly shorter than the actual book; it was only an hour long, whereas the unabridged audio recording was over ten hours. The reason I choose the radio dramatisation is quite simple, I really didn't like the narrator of the unabridged version much, and I didn't fancy spending ten plus hours with him! Plus, a radio play can be fun to listen to sometimes, and the extract I heard of it was promising. 

 

If you like murder mysteries you could spend an hour doing a lot worse as this was fun to listen to.

 

White Nights is part of the Shetland quartet, based in the Shetland Islands (of course!), and centered around the Detective Jimmy Perez.

 

In this edition a mysterious stranger is at attendance of a local art exhibition. At the end of this exhibition he claims not to know who is or where he's come from. When he turns up dead the following day, it's the job of Perez to untangle the mystery.

 

There were approximately three main voice actors, and maybe four or five supporting ones. This made for a great listening experience in consideration of the variety. There was no particular voice actor that stood out for me though, but that may be because I'm struggling to remember it clearly! That brings me to my final point...

 

It was a good enough story, but because it was so condensed it didn't have quite the same impact for me as a full length novel. I couldn't let my attention falter for a second either, or else I may have missed a crucial plot maneuver.

 

All-in-all though I would recommend it, especially if you have an hour to kill, you could do a lot worse.

 

 

 

bookshelves: radio-4, summer-2011, mystery-thriller, britain-scotland, play-dramatisation

 

Ann Cleeves can't write a bad book, as far as I'm concerned, and this latest in her Shetland series is no exception.Detective Jimmy Perez is recovering from his fiancée's death in the previous book. He spends his day moping about, taking care of the precocious Cassie, and generally doing nothing useful at the police station. Even his peers and fellow police officers at the station are sick of his moodiness.A body is inevitably found, a new detective is introduced, and one of their own may be entangled in the case. Against his will, Jimmy Perez finds himself waking from the lethargy of grief and becoming involved in the case.The characters and the writing is the hallmark of every Ann Cleeves novel. I never tire of her writing style; she has just the right amount of detail and of characterization to keep the reader interested. Her writing is spare, concise, and just right for the feel of the book. The mystery is secondary to the environment she has created.

Saturday Play - Crime drama set in Shetland at midsummer. A stranger brings trouble to a small village.Dramatised for radio by Iain Finlay MacLeod.Blub - Atmospheric crime drama set in Shetland at midsummer - the time of white nights, when the sun never quite leaves the sky and birds sing at midnight. The launch of Bella Sinclair's art exhibition, at the Herring House Gallery in the remote hamlet of Biddista, is ruined by the appearance of a distressed stranger, claiming amnesia. The man is later found hanged but local detective Jimmy Perez has a hunch that it's murder not suicide. When the dead stranger is finally identified, strands of clues point towards a dark secret held deep within the collective memory of the community, one which has brought death to the present. Cast:D.I. Jimmy Perez ..... Steven Robertson Kenny ..... Finlay Welsh Edith ..... Anne Lacey Bella ..... Eileen McCallum Fran ..... Tracy Wiles D.I. Roy Taylor ..... Robin Laing Peter ..... Steven McNicoll Roddy ..... Finn den Hertog Producer: Kirsteen Cameron.Somehow, this 2.5* story reminds me of this song.

Rating: 3.75* of fiveThis is the second Shetland Islands Quartet thriller, which marketing decision was a good one...calling these thrillers instead of mysteries sets up the expectation of a whacking good read though not necessarily the play-fair-with-the-reader puzzle-solver that modern mysteries are.Cleeves writes wonderfully clearly and carefully about flawed, real, lovable characters in bad emotional states because of violent, evil acts disrupting their very ordinary lives.The stories she tells in this series, to date, are proof to me that she's looked deeply into human nature and seen what its outlines show to the astute...there but for the grace of God go I. Everyone in this book flees from their hurts. Their flight is, inevitably, unsuccessful. Jimmy Perez can't run from his flaming co-dependence. Fran Hunter can't run from her seething ambition. Bella Sinclair can't run from her self-created persona, an Iron Maiden as effective as any Inquistor's torture device. Inspector Taylor, back up from Inverness, can't escape his fear-driven energy. No one, not any one, escapes.The white nights of the title are a phenomenon of the far north. The sun never *quite* sets enough for true, dark night to fall. It's unsettling to some, it's a biorhythm disturber of tremendous power to have the body's million-year-old clock disrupted by absence of night. It's used by vile people the world over as a form of torture to deprive a human of good rest. And yet, there are thousands whose entire lives are lived with this condition as backdrop, and they seem not to feel its downside too strongly.But let's face it...this fact of nature is a thriller-writer's best birthday present. What better metaphor, and even a pretty subtle one, for bringing to light old wrongs, shining the pitiless lamp of the torturer on the consciences of those guilty of undiscovered crimes, than a sun that won't go down?That's a very nice backdrop you've chosen, Mme Cleeves, and it works very, very well for your chosen story, right up to and including the resolution of the multiple crimes. It does not make up for the sense I got, throughout the book, that your focus wasn't on me, your reader.I recommend the book, yes. I even think there are some things about it that are outstanding, including the character developments of Perez and Taylor. But as I careened from incident to incident, I didn't sense that you were laying out this tale for my delectation, but rather leading me like a museum docent from exhibit to exhibit, trying in a haphazard way to lead my somewhat dim brain to a conclusion you'd already reached and were now impatiently awaiting my "aha!" moment. I am already in possession of "Red Bones", and I am very much looking forward to seeing what you have planned for me next, but I am a little bit put out by this sense of magisterial disdain that I got from the resolution to "White Nights." I wish you'd let me get there with you, instead of running ahead and pointing and waving your arms.