The Rising Tide

Northumberland detective Vera Stanhope is in a reflective mood in Cleeves’s haunting sequel to The Darkest Evening. It begins with a small group of friends who have come to northern England’s Holy Island since they were 16. Now, 50 years later, they still return every five years despite the tragic death at their first reunion. Rick, the journalist in their group, announces he’s about to write a tell-all novel. When one of the women finds him hanging in his room the day after his revelation, she calls the police. Vera and her small Northumberland team respond. As usual, Vera does things her own way, keeping the group together for a few days so they can be questioned. She latches on to that death 45 years earlier, when a young woman was swept away with the tide. She asks her team to probe into the past, looking for secrets in the lives of an Anglican priest, a deli owner, and two teachers, along with several others who once ran with the group. But before she can identify the killer, Vera’s own team is threatened.