Telling Tales

Ten years ago, 15-year-old Abigail Mantel was murdered in the small town of Elvet. Jeanie Long, Abigail’s father’s girlfriend, was arrested for the murder. But Jeanie always claimed she was innocent. After ten years in jail, Jeanie commits suicide—but evidence exonerating her is discovered shortly afterwards. Vera Stanhope is assigned to the case to figure out what went wrong in the initial investigation, but with the murder happening so long ago, how much of what Vera hears is the truth, how much is people misremembering—and how much is people telling tales so they can cope with sending an innocent woman to jail?

All right, that’s my sting, but I think the “telling tales” line is a bit exaggerated. When we aren’t following Vera, the narrator is usually Emma Bennett, Abigail’s best friend and a new mother. Emma likes to daydream, and... that’s the closest the title comes to meaning anything. Yes, witnesses have to give their account and “tell a tale,” but they have to do that in every detective novel. There’s nothing wrong here, it’s just that I felt the title was suggestive of something that never really happened.

Anyway, back to the book itself. Perhaps unsurprisingly, my feelings about Telling Tales are pretty similar to those for The Crow Trap, the first Vera Stanhope novel. It’s well-written and engaging in the moment, but we aren’t given the actual clues towards the killer until the very end and this is very much a book that has “a” solution rather than “the” solution.

If you want character drama, this is the book for you. Everyone has something to hide... although none of it ever amounts to anything, except for the killer. Vera enters the picture much earlier in Telling Tales than in The Crow Trap, and since Telling Tales doesn’t need to establish Vera’s character, it also focuses more on her actual investigation.

If you want a fair-play whodunnit... look somewhere else. I don’t think there’s much else to say on this book in particular.

I do have one last thing to note about the Vera Stanhope series, though, and that is that the Vera Stanhope series feels distinctly feminine. I felt this way about The Crow Trap, but that was just one book. However, the fact that Telling Tales gave me the same impression makes me think that this is a feature of the series and/or Ann Cleeves’ writing, and not just a coincidence.

I feel most detective novels are either “masculine” (for instance, Carr novels) or gender neutral (for instance, Christie novels). The Vera Stanhope books (or at least, the two I’ve read) feel feminine. The victim is female, the major players are female, the detective is female... There are important females that can’t be mentioned in a spoiler-free review. Though I say that the novels feel “feminine,” that is a far cry from being “girly.” Vera herself is old, fat, and ugly. The novels are about women, and all different sorts of women, from a woman’s point of view. This isn’t something that makes the books better or worse, but just a minor quirk that I haven’t found in other detective novels.

Vera Stanhope seems like an entertaining series, but it just doesn’t give me what I want from my mysteries. Sorry Ann, but I don’t think you’ll be telling any more of your tales to me.