Book Review: The Dark Wives by Ann Cleeves
By Janet Webb
September 6, 2024
Ann Cleeves has saved the best for last. Detective Inspector Vera Stanhope is as persistent, devious, and laser-focused as always but her involvement this time is visceral. Vera’s still reeling from Detective Constable Holly Lawson’s death by drowning in The Rising Tide. One doesn’t envy newbie Rosie Bell, the newest member of Vera’s team. No one would pass up an opportunity to work with Vera Stanhope, but she has that tricky reputation.
The Dark Wives is a deeply personal book. Cleeves writes,
I trained as a social worker when I was in my twenties and occasionally worked with troubled young people who’d grown up in chaotic families. Perhaps, that was why a radio documentary about teens living in residential care moved me so much. The programme explored a few of the unscrupulous private companies that run residential homes in the UK. The idea of making a profit out of young people trying to survive the trauma of a neglectful or abusive childhood unsettled me.
So, The Dark Wives was born.
Josh Woodburn, “a student working part-time in a small care home on the Northumberland coast is found murdered.” N.B. Should you want to visit the coastal village of Longwater, it is “fictional as is the monument and crime scene of Three Dark Wives.” Josh’s body was found just outside the Rosebank Home: is his death connected to his job? Chloe Spence is missing, she’s a resident of the Rosebank Home. Why is Chloe on the run? Vera Stanhope views Josh’s body and reads the diary of the missing teenager.
IT’S NOVEMBER TODAY. I HATE NOVEMBER. Two years ago, in November, my dad ran off. A year ago, Mam stopped eating and started slipping away. She got the sack from the travel agency in town, and I caught her talking to the TV when it wasn’t even switched on. She had the idea that it was talking back. There was just her and me, and I felt I was drowning. I’m only fourteen, so what could I do to help?
Time passes.
Now it’s November again. Mam’s back in the hospital, and I’m having to live here: Rosebank Home for the teenage kids nobody wants. I don’t blame Mam. She’s ill. And Dad’s not even in the country. Apparently, he’s in Dubai, making a fortune selling fancy apartments to rich people.
Being a teenage girl, is it surprising Chloe develops feelings for Josh? He told her to keep a diary, a place to let out my thoughts and feelings. Josh is a bright life in her unhappy life … she writes I think I could be in love with him. Vera reads Chloe’s scrawl and says, ‘It’s got today’s date. Chloe must have written it this evening.’
A fourteen-year-old girl, Chloe Spence, has disappeared. Perhaps because she’s sparky, challenging, difficult at school, Vera hates to think of the lass as a killer. But Chloe must be found. She’s either a suspect, another victim, or an important witness.
“Sparky, challenging, difficult,” could serve as a description of Detective Inspector Vera Stanhope. A sparky person is lively, challenging, and never boring—but Chloe, like Vera, has spiky edges. It’s Vera’s job to go deeper, and she will. Vera has never become inured to death, and Josh was so young, with his whole life ahead of him.
His face was turned towards Vera, but she could see the back of his head, the large round hole in the skull where he’d been hit, the blood that clotted and matted in the pale hay-colored hair.
Oh Chloe, Vera thought. What have you done? And where are you now? And if this wasn’t you – and really there’s nothing in your diary to suggest that it was – are you still alive?
The residential home exudes a sad and rather sordid past. It’s been a guest house, a bail hostel, “a hostel for asylum seekers.”
A bleak house on the edge of a former pit village, with threadbare carpets and everywhere small signs of violence: a door almost pulled off its hinges, a sofa with a scorch mark, not quite hidden by a cushion. How could a child feel safe or loved here? Vera knew what it felt like to be unloved, but she’d grown up in the hills, with space and clean air, and couldn’t remember ever feeling unsafe.
Vera gets to the bottom of finances behind the Rosebank Home, by taking to Kath, a knowledgeable social worker. Kath is a warm, solid figure, close to retirement age.
‘Tell me about the home,’ Vera said. ‘Rosebank. Who actually runs it?’ She couldn’t see Dave Limbrick in charge of the place, even if there were only four kids staying there.
‘It’s owned by a company called Seaview. Based in Barrow, and they have places in Blackpool and Whitehaven too. They buy up places in run-down seaside towns and set up kids’ homes.’ Kath looked up at Vera. Her eyes were feverish with anger. Vera recognized the mood, the fizzing fury. She could get like that herself.
‘So it’s all about making profit?’ asks Vera. Yes. “Glossy brochures” notwithstanding.
“When a second connected body is found near the Three Dark Wives monument in the wilds of the Northumberland countryside, superstition and folklore begin to collide with fact.” Vera knows Chloe is likely the key to what happened, and that the teenager is in grave danger. The climax is set high up in the hills, at dusk. The night’s activities are imbued with centuries-old traditions, while Vera and her team search feverishly for a killer and a lost girl.
The Dark Wives is a moody, atmospheric mystery with an impact that lingers long after reading it.