No. 1 Sunday Times bestselling author of the Shetland and Vera Stanhope series, 'the Queen of the detective novel' (Daily Express), Ann Cleeves returns with the first in a series set in North Devon and featuring Detective Matthew Venn. In this rural idyll, where two rivers meet, crime is always there waiting to rise from the water . . .

Meet Detective Matthew Venn. From Ann Cleeves, the Sunday Times bestselling crime author and creator of Vera Stanhope and Shetland's Jimmy Perez, The Long Call is the number one bestselling first novel in the Two Rivers series. Now a major ITV series.

'Clever, compassionate and atmospheric, with a great cast of new characters to love' - Elly Griffiths, award-winning author of The Crossing Places

North Devon. Where the rivers Taw and Torridge converge and run into the sea, Detective Matthew Venn stands outside the church as his father's funeral takes place. The day Matthew turned his back on the strict evangelical community in which he grew up, he lost his family too.

Now he's back, not just to mourn his father at a distance, but to take charge of his first major case in the Two Rivers region; a complex place not quite as idyllic as tourists suppose.

A body has been found on the beach near to Matthew's new home: a man with the tattoo of an albatross on his neck, stabbed to death.

Finding the killer is Venn's only focus, and his team's investigation will take him straight back into the community he left behind, and the deadly secrets that lurk there.

'Stunning' - David Baldacci, author of The 6:20 Man

'Another fine chapter in the Ann Cleeves story' - The Times

'One of Britain's best crime writers' - Daily Express

'Cleeves is quietly carving out a reputation as the new Queen of Crime' - Sunday Mirror

The Long Call is the first entry in the Two Rivers detective series. Continue the mysteries with The Heron's Cry.

Evocative and gripping - an absolute triumph