From the Book Bin: Anne Cleeves’ Matthew Venn Returns in ‘The Dying Light’
The Dying Light
Publisher : Minotaur Books
Publication date : September 29, 2026
Print length : 384 pages
I’ll admit to not having read an Ann Cleeves book before the first Matthew Venn mystery or even seen one of the ubquitous BritishTV shows based on her stories. Having a gay detective in a mainstream mystery got my attention, and I ‘ve looked forward to each book in the series. The newest doesn’t disappoint.
Some background on Cleeves: She’s given us two of the most-loved detectives in British crime fiction. Vera Stanhope and Jimmy Perez of Shetland both made the leap from page to screen and found devoted audiences. With The Dying Light, the fourth book in her Matthew Venn Two Rivers series, she brings back the quiet Detective Inspector Matthew Venn, and the result is one of the most absorbing entries yet.
The Story
It’s the height of a punishing heatwave in North Devon, England. A young woman named Lottie is found dead in the swimming pool of Tide House, a luxurious holiday home. Her best friend, Hannah, is missing. The house belongs to Hannah’s father, Paul Armstrong, a rising political star, and the press descends almost immediately.
The two girls had come to Devon to celebrate the end of their exams, and they hadn’t made many friends. They disrupted a folk music festival on a neighboring farm and mocked the locals in videos they posted online. That gives Venn a long list of people with a grudge, and a community that has no intention of making his job easy. As the heat builds and a second tragedy strikes, Venn and his team find that some of the holidaymakers have closer ties to the Armstrongs than anyone admitted.
Cleeves is a master of the closed-community mystery, and she uses the festival, the farm, and the holiday crowd to set locals against outsiders. The suspects are many and plausible, and the ending lands with a genuine surprise.
Matthew Venn and the Two Rivers Series
Venn is one of the more interesting detectives in contemporary crime fiction. He grew up in a strict evangelical community and was cast out when he left it, losing his family in the process. He’s thoughtful, a little awkward, and prone to self-doubt. He’s also married to Jonathan, a warm and outgoing man who runs The Woodyard, a community and arts center in Barnstaple. Their marriage is one of the series’ great pleasures, a steady, loving relationship between two very different men, written without fuss or apology. In The Dying Light, Jonathan faces a personal discovery of his own about his birth mother, which gives the book an emotional thread alongside the investigation.
The series takes its name from the Taw and Torridge, the two rivers that meet in the estuary near Barnstaple. It began with The Long Call (2019), which won the Agatha Award for Best Contemporary Novel, and continued with The Heron’s Cry (2021) and The Raging Storm (2023), along with a novella, The Girls on the Shore. Each book can be read on its own, but the series rewards readers who start at the beginning and watch Venn’s world grow.
The Long Call on Television
The first book was adapted as The Long Call, a four-part ITV drama that aired in October 2021 and later came to international viewers on BritBox. Ben Aldridge, known from Fleabag, played Matthew Venn, with Declan Bennett as Jonathan and Pearl Mackie as DS Jen Rafferty. Juliet Stevenson played Matthew’s mother, Dorothy, and Martin Shaw played Dennis Stephenson, a leader in the religious community Matthew left behind. The series was written by Kelly Jones and filmed along the North Devon coast, with Matthew and Jonathan’s home in the village of Appledore. Aldridge’s performance was widely praised, and while only one season was made, it remains well worth seeking out.
The Verdict
The Dying Light delivers everything Cleeves fans come for: a strong sense of place, a puzzle that keeps you guessing, and characters who feel like real people with real lives. Venn remains a detective you want to spend time with, and the heatwave setting gives this book a tension all its own. Highly recommended, whether you’re a longtime reader or meeting Matthew Venn for the first time.