No stones unturned

Just two magic words: Jimmy Perez.

Jimmy Perez, that iconic Shetland police detective, the stoic kindly Scot born on tiny Fair Isle and descended from shipwrecked Spanish sailors fleeing the destruction of the armada, missed by so many lo these seven years, is alive and well and still investigating murders.

We’ll pause while you try to pull yourself together.

When Ann Cleeves announced she was writing her final Shetland mystery seven years ago, some despairing readers undoubtedly feared Jimmy would die on the final page.

Yet here he is, on the Orkney Islands, with his wife Willow, who happens to be his police boss, and their wee bairn — and Willow pregnant with their second child.

And as our tale begins with a wild storm battering the Orkneys, Jimmy’s oldest friend is lying dead on the beach, his skull crushed by one of the two ancient rune stones that were proudly displayed at the local heritage centre.

The second rune stone is missing; could that possibly be a portent? Even a clue?

Cleeves is the amazing author of the Vera police procedural series in Northumbria, as well as her recent new detective Matthew Vann in rural southwest England, and now here’s our lad Jimmy back and anguished at the death of his friend.

It’s nearly Christmas, there’s a huge storm shutting down the airports in Glasgow and Inverness, some ferries aren’t leaving port, and it’s left to Jimmy and Willow and the handful of local coppers to solve the murder without having the heavy-handed mainland detectives taking over.

What are the chances there’ll be a second murder? Or even a third?

Cleeves has always been about character, and The Killing Stones abounds in the fascinating people of a harsh and remote land, a handful who’ve come from away for purposes that may be less than exemplary. Then there’s the land itself — the Orkneys are an omnipresent character every bit as raw and magnificent as Shetland and Northumbria.

Jimmy’s friend Archie had been a boisterous presence who may have strayed from his wedding vows once in a while, a man who liked his drink and was a friend to everyone. Supposedly.

There’s a grieving widow and her kids, and a woman living on her own, selling her crafts, whom Archie has been seen visiting at odd hours, though ya nae heard that from me, ya ken?

We have a teacher who’s much loved by former students who’ve stayed on the islands; he seems to be working on something mysterious…well, you’d want that in a mystery, right?

His longtime partner has retired from London so they can live openly together. Some sort of civil servant. He couldn’t possibly have been a double-ought spy.

Jimmy and Willow know pretty well everyone, of course, and so many people are related or grew up together. So many little pieces of information that could get spun together, it’s so hard to do anything in such a small place as Orkney that no one notices.

We also have the Johnsons, arrogant superior professors who not only come from the mainland, but (brace yourselves) England.

The man is especially pompous. He’s written about the ancient history of the Orkneys, has appeared in BBC documentaries so handsomely and eruditely explaining the history of the runes and ruins as the saltwater winds ruffle his longish hair like a Viking of old.

And yet… and yet there are these rumours the prof’s research was all conducted by Archie’s father, whom the professor treated as an illiterate and inferior being and whom he never credited.

Could that plagiarism have possibly played a role in the horror that unfolds?

This is the same Jimmy Perez we’ve all come to know in Cleeves’ Shetland books and on the telly — brilliant, decent, hoping to see the best in people, compassionate.

This isn’t, however, the Willow of the TV show, who is a forensic scientist from the mainland. This Willow grew up in a commune in the Outer Hebrides and while she’s a senior police detective, Cleeves portrays her as an aging hippie, with wild tangled hair and the same regard for fashion as Vera.

We’re probably all so happy to have Jimmy Perez back that we’d settle for anything Ann Cleeves offered.

There’s no need to settle for anything less than greatness. The Killing Stones is one of the best books Cleeves has written in recent memory.

Retired Free Press reporter Nick Martin has seen Jimmy Perez’s house in Lerwick from the land and the seas, and saw Fair Isle from the sea. This fall he and his wife will be in the Outer Hebrides. Next trip, the Orkneys?