Ann Cleeves

I think f- for, for me, the cover is absolutely key because when you're...

if you're shopping online for a book, or if you're in a bookshop looking for a book, if your book cover stands out as being substandard or not the same as my... you know, as anyone, like whether it's Ian Rankin or Stuart MacBride or, um, Ann Cleeves, if it looks different to those, to those books, because then someone... no one's gonna read it.

If it looks like it's produced on Canva at home, then no one's gonna open it to even find out if it's a decent book.

So that's the kind of, that's the first hurdle, really.

We see this mechanical use of landscape in modern tartan noir all the time.

Think of Peter May's Hebrides thrillers where the peat bogs and the Atlantic gales physically trap the characters on the islands or Ann Cleeves' Shetland series.

Or Graham Macrae Burnet's His Bloody Project which utilizes the oppressive hyper-scrutinized reality of 19th century crofting communities.

Yes.

At number two, The Deadly Inheritance of Everest McDonald by A.J. West, of course.

And at number one, The Dying Light by Ann Cleeves.

So very heavily dominated by-

Yes

...

so I just read a book, I just finished on my drive home this morning, uh, Raven Black by Ann Cleeves, which is not a new book.

I don't know its year of-

Yeah