Telling Tales (Vera Stanhope, 2)

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We also follow Jeanie's father who is a broken man after realizing that his daughter was innocent and he didn't see her or defend her. Ten years ago fifteen-year-old Abigail Mantel was murdered, her cold body discovered lying in a ditch.

When I finished the series, I realized that I DID want to give the books a try [I had read the first one, which is what led me to the TV show] and so I dove in. Hopefully there will be more character-building in the third book which I will probably read at some point. Demonstrating singular adeptness with mood and pacing, narrator Julia Franklin shines in this character-rich mystery set in northern England. Listened to the extremely well narrated audio on storytel and didn't want to come out of the fictional world into my real life. This leads to Vera turning over some rocks and bringing things that haven't been said or thought of in a very long time to light.Keith Mantel's young girlfriend, Jeanie Long, had moved into his home and Abigail vowed to get her out. Only my second Vera Stanhope book but strong writing, humanly messy characters and a sense of place are becoming the hallmarks of this series. While she was cooking in the Bird Observatory on Fair Isle, she met her husband Tim, a visiting ornithologist. The killer is still at large, and Vera Stanhope must reopen the investigation and jog villagers’ painful memories.

At one point she is referred to as looking like a bag lady but when it comes to interviewing suspects and discovering the guilty she is the best.The ending really surprised me in this book and although I loved the first book, I think I may have enjoyed this one even slightly better. I read the last half of the book, rather than listening to the meh narrator and that made the book better for me [in this case] as I could have the characters voices from the show in my head instead of the narrators. Emma's husband and brother are both harboring secrets, though Emma's brother Chris has an obsession with Abigail and can't seem to move on from her murder. However Abigail’s life was destined to be short when her cold body was found lying in a drainage ditch with a scarf wrapped tightly around her pale, thin neck.