The Darkest Evening (Vera Stanhope)

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You want to drink cups of tea and eating biscuits throughout your read and enjoy the dark, gripping mystery with the quirky, straightforward, also entertaining tactics of Vera. In The Rising Tide, a group of teenagers spent a weekend on Holy Island: that was fifty years ago, but it forged a bond that has lasted a lifetime. They still return every five years to celebrate their friendship, and remember the friend they lost to the rising waters of the causeway at the first reunion. Die hard viewers of Vera had to be very patient after it was pulled from schedules at the start of last year, with them knowing that there were still two episodes to come in series 11. Vera fans over in America got to watch them along with the rest of the series on BritBox, but British viewers were made to wait until last month to see Vital Signs and The Way The Wind Blows. The Darkest Evening, with a script by Colette Kane, and starring - of course! - Brenda Blethyn as DVI Vera Stanhope, was broadcast on 19th February 2023, as the 50th episode of ITV's popular crime drama. It is available to watch again on ITVx.

The hit crime drama sees Brenda Blethyn in the title role, inspired by the best-selling novels from Ann Cleeves. The family had been unfailingly polite. That branch of the clan used politeness as a weapon of mass destruction. But Hector had always come away humiliated and angry. Vera, who’d never felt any obligation to be loyal to her father, had understood the family’s point of view. Hector would be rude and demanding, usually halfway drunk on the most recent visits. She’d been hugely embarrassed and they’d been kind to her. As expected, there are twists and turns throughout the book as individual’s positive traits along with their past and present foibles are revealed. As Vera explains, it’s a murder investigation and nothing is irrelevant. The investigation is conducted in large part by Vera with some additions from Joe and Holly which give insight into how the team functions as well as how Very works to get her staff to develop good investigative skills. The characters are well-drawn and easily recognisable. Vera knows her strengths but she also knows when Holly or Joe is more likely to get a warmer reception when interviewing people. Juliet, who looked at mothers’ forums on the Internet in secret, with shame, as if she were accessing pornography, thought it could be about twelve months old. It might just be walking. Not properly talking. But really what did she know? In the drawing room, she heard the sound of voices, a sudden shrill laugh. It was clear that they weren’t missing her. Mark and Harriet would keep things going. She looked again at the baby and found herself unclipping the straps and lifting it out into her arms. It smelled of fabric softener and baby oil. And poo. ‘I think it needs changing. We might have nappies somewhere. Dorothy, our housekeeper, has a baby.’But then – the party is interrupted by a body in the snow. Harriet Stanhope, the lady of the house and Crispin’s wife, has been found stabbed to death outside the kitchen door. I want to thank the publisher "St. Martin's Press" and Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book and any thoughts and opinions expressed are unbiased and mine alone!

Besides, Vera thought, if she could face murderers and rapists, she wasn’t going to be intimidated by a few weak-chinned minor aristos.” Sitting with them had been three generations of women: Elizabeth, white-haired and wiry, wife of Hector’s elder brother Sebastian; Harriet, the very glamorous wife of Hector’s nephew Crispin; and her daughter Juliet, a toddler with blonde curls and a knowing stare. If the men were in the house, they’d kept well away. There’d been a conversation, which must have been about money, but which was so hedged around with euphemism that Vera hadn’t been able to work out what was being said. Besides, she’d been focused on the meringues, wondering if it would be rude to take the one which remained on the plate. As always, Hector had left empty-handed and bitter, swearing revenge all the way home. Well, there’s this.’ Vera looked down and Juliet saw a sleeping child in a car seat. ‘Do you think I could bring it in? It’s freezing out here. It’s asleep at the moment.’ She looked at Juliet as if her opinion mattered. Juliet felt a tug in the gut. She’d wanted children ever since she could remember, but it hadn’t happened and she was approaching an age when perhaps it never would. Sometimes she couldn’t help an overwhelming feeling of jealousy when children were mentioned. If it’s not mine, I don’t care if it freezes to death. Sometimes a gentler longing, which was just as desperate. ‘Of course, bring him in. Or her. Which is it?’ I'm always interested to learn where the title of a book comes from and here the source seems to be a phrase in the Robert Frost poem, 'Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening', one of my personal favorites, and which has significance to the victim in the story. The darkest evening of the year of course is the winter solstice, in the bleak midwinter.

Customer reviews

Vera realizes that the child cannot be left in the car. She leaves a note, takes the child with her and sets off to find shelter and warmth for themselves. Holly thought this was one of the strangest cases she’d ever worked. She was slightly thrown by it: by the big house, the suspects trapped by the weather, the snow. It reminded her of the TV dramas her parents had forced her to watch when she went home for Christmas. They expected her to solve the mystery before they did and were disappointed when she showed no interest. ‘You must know who the killer is, darling. It’s what you do for a living.’” The story begins when Vera ends up with a baby. But not the usual way. In the middle of a blizzard, she comes across an abandoned car with a tiny person inside. Their only hope is to make it to the nearest house which just happens to be the ancestral home of her father’s estranged family. Awkward.

But Vera has her own issues. Re the Baby, which she has no idea how to handle. “Do you think I could bring it in?” she asks a little desperately. Hello, pet.’ Vera came in and stamped her boots on the mat to get rid of the snow. ‘I’m not gatecrashing, honest. I’ve got a bit of a situation.’The mystery was interesting and there were plenty of red herrings to throw the reader off. I enjoyed the story and will read more books in this series. Although part of a series, this is a standalone tale. Newer readers like myself will probably end up looking at some of the earlier books, curious about what we might have missed. Highly recommended. Five stars. This interesting clashing of the classes occurs in the midst of the missing persons case turned deadly: within a few hours, the mother's body is discovered brutally murdered on the grounds of the estate. The Stanhope family is not sure how Vera should be treated, but as a member of the police she takes charge and soon is treating them the way she would treat most any suspects of a murder. The contrast between Vera, who has little concern for the opinions of others and Harriet, the matriarch of the Stanhope family who lives and dies by her reputation is well drawn. The various characters are all well developed and the reader has ample opportunity to deepen their knowledge of them as they move through the book.