Dead Water cover art

Dead Water

Shetland, Book 5

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Dead Water

By: Ann Cleeves
Narrated by: Kenny Blyth
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About this listen


A journalist working on a story. Now his murder is a headline. Inspector Jimmy Perez is called in to investigate in Dead Water, the fifth Shetland mystery from Ann Cleeves.

Now a major BBC One drama, Shetland, starring Douglas Henshall.

When the body of a journalist is found in a traditional Shetland boat, Detective Inspector Willow Reeves is drafted in to head up the investigation.

Jimmy Perez has been out of the loop, but his local knowledge is needed and he decides to help the inquiry. Originally a Shetlander, the journalist had left the islands years before to make a name for himself in London, leaving a scandal in his wake. He had few friends in Shetland, so why was he back?

When Willow and Jimmy dig deeper, they realize that he was chasing a story that many Shetlanders didn't want to come to the surface. One that must have been significant enough to kill him for . . .

Continue the captivating crime series with Thin Air.

©2013 Ann Cleeves (P)2013 Isis Publishing Ltd Crime Crime Thrillers Fiction Genre Fiction Mystery Police Procedural Small Town & Rural Thriller & Suspense Thriller

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All stars
Most relevant
enjoyed this book. Not the best Shetland story I have read but would recommend.

Good read

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An intriguing storyline and cleverly narrated. Very much Looking forward to the next fascinating story.

Just brilliant

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Interesting, compelling story, well told. And excellently narrated by the reliable Kenny Blyth, who is able to produce a range of distinct characters.

Another good one

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Let's start with the positive: clearly, there's enough there for me to keep purchasing more books in this series. And I will continue doing so, because I find them entertaining and soothing. However, certain things, mostly in the narration, are really starting to grate. Kenny Blyth is apparently a very well-known and very professional narrator, but did he maybe have too much work so he didn't take the time to read each passage before narrating it? Because he gets the intonation, emotion, personality, age, etc. wrong SO many times. He makes almost all women sound really, really old and Mrs Doubtfire-y. “xx was beaming and yy thought again how young she looked.” How can you look at Mrs Doubtfire and think she looks young? Often, even when it's literally written in what way a character says something, he completely reads it like something else. Like a whispered “Come with me” when the very next sentence makes clear that the character was screaming! It’s just so odd, as if he didn’t prepare. From his website I can see (and hear) he does many different voices and vibes, so I genuinely don't understand why in this book almost all characters sound the same - all Shetlanders sound like eldery crofter clichés, even when they're 28. That's my major prolbem, but there are a few other smaller points. The word 'mischievious' is used surprisingly often, and always with the incorrect i added. I don't know if that's Kenny mispronouncing the correct 'mischievous' or Ann actually having written it incorrectly. Perez switches off his mobile phone so many times that at least some of those occasions, the author must have meant that he ended the call, right? Who shuts off their mobile phone so often, especially when you’re a police inspector/detective on a case? Maybe it's my ocd, but these things are very distracting to me.

the narration is really getting to me

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What I so enjoy about author Ann Cleeve's Shetland series is the detail. She takes an interesting local subject, that has you googling for more information & runs with it. In Red Bones it was archeology, in Blue Lightening bird watching and here even though it's really more of a side issue, renewable energy, tidal & wave power and yoals, the six man rowing boats traditionally used in Shetland, that the first body is found in & the murderer builds.
Set six months after Fran Hunter's death, Dead Water has Jimmy Perez grieving & guilt consumed, back at work but withdrawn & distant, and obsessed with child care, the caring for Cassie, Fran's daughter, left to him in her unofficial will, like a piece of property! Much to Sgt Sandy Wilson's relief, when the Procurator Fiscal finds former Shetland News reporter, now a London journalist's dead in her rowing teams boat, Willow Reeves is drafted in from Inverness to take charge of the murder investigation. Was the man's reason to be back in Shetland a big news story scoop or blackmail relating to new Power of Water project or the North Sea Gas & Oil industry ? Then a second body shows up. The forthcoming wedding's dummy / scarecrow groom, ghoulishly replaced with the corpse of the actual groom. Both dead men are tied to a Fetlar island lass with a religious background & connections to the water project. Mix in the evasive Fiscal and you've a complex web. Perez finally comes out of his lethargy & sees the case is rooted in one family man's sense of betrayal.
Overall, not the most engaging, strongest book in the series, suspect Willow Reeves is a new love interest, however still enjoyable enough & as always Kenny Blyth's narration was a pleasure to listen to.

Perez's first faltering steps back!

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