Gordon Griffin

A celebrated crime writer in Britain and winner of the coveted 2006 Duncan Lawrie Dagger Award, Cleeves now introduces a dazzling new suspense series--featuring Inspector Jimmy Perez--to U.S. mystery readers. In the remote Scottish Shetland Islands, Det. Insp. Jimmy Perez investigates the murder of teenage Catherine Ross, found strangled on a snowy hillside shortly after New Year's. Police and citizens alike are quick to lay the blame on local eccentric...

"It's midsummer in the Shetland Islands, the time of the white nights, when birds sing at midnight and the sun never sets. Artist Bella Sinclair throws an elaborate party to launch an exhibition of her work at The Herring House, a gallery on the beach. The party ends in farce when one the guests, a mysterious Englishman, bursts into tears and claims not to know who he is or where he's come from. The following day the Englishman is found hanging from...

A teenage boy, Kafka Tamura runs away from home either to escape a gruesome oedipal prophecy or to search for his long-missing mother and sister; and an aging simpleton called Nakata, who never recovered from a wartime affliction and now is drawn toward Kafka for reasons that, like the most basic activities of daily life, he cannot fathom.