Shetland writer explains why she is bringing Jimmy | UK News

Bestselling writer Ann Cleeves determined to carry back one of her most beloved detectives in a new sequence because she was “homesick” for Britain’s Northern Isles. Detective Inspector Jimmy Perez last featured in her 2018 thriller Wild Fire which she felt was a becoming conclusion to his story after the sudden death of her husband Tim from a coronary heart condition in December 2017. She had met Tim, a revered ornithologist, while working for a summer time as an assistant cook at an observatory on Fair Isle, the southern-most Shetland isle, 50 years in the past.

After his death she said it could be too painful to write any more books in her Shetlands sequence as after spending so a lot time on the Scottish islands with Tim he was an “intrinsic” half of it. But her love of the wild and distant islands, and fond recollections of spending time with the people residing there with Tim, have now drawn her back with a new thriller set on Orkney, The eliminateing Stones, which is out on Tuesday.

This sees Jimmy residing with his companion Willow and their younger son on the main Orkney island when he is called out in a violent storm after his childhood pal Archie Stout goes lacking.

The detective, portrayed by actor Dougie Henshall, 59, in a in style TV adaptation for seven sequence until leaving the drama in 2022 and being changed by Ashley Jensen, 56, finds his pal lifeless from a blow to the pinnacle with a Neolithic stone carved with Viking runes, and vows to carry the killer to justice.

Ann says: “Wildfire was going to be the very last Jimmy Perez, eight books, that was enough.

“But I get kind of homesick for the Northern Isles, I really wanted to go north again, I was haunted by it in a way, wanting to be back on the islands.

“And it is 50 years since I first went to Fair Isle, so I’ve recently been back and it was a bit special for the launch of a new bird observatory there.”

She provides: “It was 50 years ago that I first met Tim on Fair Isle. I had dropped out of university and was living in a bedsit in Putney working for Camden social services, because I had done a gap year working for them, so I went back and got a job with them.

“But I am not a city person at all and I did not really like to be in London in a bedsit in the same house with a guy we all thought was really weird because he was a birder.

“He was going off to be the assistant warden in the observatory (on Fair Isle). I did not really know him that well but I went to the pub to say goodbye to him and he was moaning about what a wet and miserable place it was, because he been dumped by his girlfriend so he was just generally miserable, and I said I would not mind spending a summer on Fair Isle, without even knowing where it was.

“But he said if you are serious they are desperate for an assistant cook, so off I went, which is what you do when you are 19 or 20.”

Tim got here as a visiting birdwatcher and when they both returned to Shetland for the next summer time and had been serving to the islanders with hay baling, he proposed to her.

Ann, 70, says: “The last Shetland book coincided with him dying, so that’s why I decided not to do any more Shetland books. The time that has passed has changed this and the new series is also a celebration of the people that are there, people I thought were old then now don’t seem so old. It was fabulous to go back and catch up with people who were there when I first went to Shetland. Some were young parents at the time.”

She provides that it is also 50 years since she first went to Orkney, to keep with a pal she met while working on Fair Isle. So she relished spending time there researching her latest novel, which is the start of a new sequence.

Ann says: “That was in midwinter, at the end of 2023, and it was clear and frosty, and absolutely beautiful. There is no other reason for bringing Jimmy Perez back now other than I wanted to go north again, and in the last Shetland book Wild Fire he had moved with Willow to Orkney, so I thought it would be quite fun to see them together as a family, because we have not done that, and see him with her as his boss really. It grew out of that.”

She provides: “eliminateing Stones is about families again. I write a lot about families and if you live in Orkney or Shetland it is very hard because you are very close to people but you also want to keep part of your life private, so there are those secrets that people know but don’t talk about, and I quite enjoy exploring those things.”

When requested if there could possibly be a TV adaptation of her new Orkney sequence, with Jimmy Perez no longer in the BBC drama Shetland, which has been continued independently of her books by its screenwriters, she says: “I don’t think anyone else could play Jimmy in a TV adaptation because Dougie was just so iconic, and it would just be a bit greedy to have another TV series, wouldn’t it

“But Vera is not on TV now, so it’s up to them (Silverprint, the production company behind the Shetland and Vera TV versions). If they fancy it, that would be wonderful. Orkney would love it.”

Ann, who lives in Whitley Bay, also created Vera Stanhope, a detective introduced to life by Brenda Blethyn, 79, in a long-running ITV drama that completed last 12 months. She says: “It feels weird not to have Vera back filming, as it was a lot easier for me to go on set in Northumberland than it was to go up to Shetland. It was like order being restored, Vera coming back for filming and the people in the North East loved it, they would all come out and watch.”

After saying that last 12 months’s Vera novel The Dark Wives can be the end of the sequence, coinciding with the TV sequence ending, Ann has now determined to write another one. She says: “Last year I thought I had probably written enough Vera, with the TV series ending, but I have introduced a new character, Rosie Bell, and if I want to go back and be in the North East again I might focus on her, so I’m leaving it open to potentially doing more books set in Northumberland. The new Vera will come out in 2027.

“I am planning to write more books with Jimmy on Orkney and because Willow is in charge of all of the Scottish islands we could go and do something in North Uist, as she is originally from the Hebrides, so that would be fun. I’ll stick in Orkney for a bit.”

Her third sequence that includes Detective Matthew Venn is set in North Devon, where she grew up and reunited with a childhood pal after dropping Tim. It’s third instalment will come out next 12 months but Ann is remaining tight-lipped about its plot, saying: “I can’t tell you anything about it at this stage.”

With her three sequence permitting her to spend time in locations she loves in Britain, the Northern Isles, Northum-berland and Devon, she has no plans to curb her prolific output.

Ann says: “I love writing books. I get up in the morning and look forward to telling stories, that is what gets me out of bed. The festivals and touring are tiring but that’s just a few weeks and the payback is being paid to tell stories.”

The eliminateing Stones by Ann Cleeves (Pan Macmillan hardback, £22) is out on Tuesday.