The Raging Storm

Longlisted for the 2024 Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Prize

Detective Matthew Venn returns in The Raging Storm, the third captivating novel in the Two Rivers series by New York Times bestseller Ann Cleeves, author of the Vera Stanhope and Shetland series.

When Jem Rosco, sailor, adventurer and local legend, blows into town in the middle of an autumn gale, the residents of Greystone, Devon, are delighted to have a celebrity in their midst.

The community thinks nothing of it when Rosco disappears again; that's just the sort of man he is. Until, a lifeboat is launched to a hoax call-out during a raging storm and his body is found in a dinghy, anchored off Scully Cove, a place with legends of its own.

This is an uncomfortable case for DI Matthew Venn. He came to the remote village as a child, its community populated by the Barum Brethren that he parted ways with, so when superstition and rumour mix and another body is found in the cove, Matthew soon finds his judgement clouded. As the stormy winds howl and the village is cut off, Venn and his team start their investigation, little realizing their own lives might be in danger.

The Raging Storm follows The Long Call, now a television series on Britbox, and The Heron's Cry in Ann Cleeves' bestselling, critically acclaimed Two Rivers series.