A Waste Of The 22 Minutes It Took To Listen To It

'The Raging Storm', the third Two Rivers book will be published this week. Before listening to that, I thought I'd listen to 'The Girls On The Shore' which is listed as 'Two Rivers 2.5'.

'The Girls On The Shore' is sometimes listed as a novella and sometimes as a short story. Either way, the length of the Audible version showed as fifty-five minutes, so I knew it would be more of a snack than a meal but an author can do a lot in fifty.-five minutes.

Except 'The Girls On The Shore' is only twenty-two minutes long. The rest of the time is spent on the first chapter of a Vera novel.

Still, twenty-two minutes can sometimes be enough to tell a powerful short story.

This wasn't one of those times.

'The Girls On The Shore' is barely a sketch of an idea. The image of the two girls, standing alone on the shore, wearing school uniforms that aren't protecting them from the bitter cold, was a strong one but there was no story to back it up. Venn finds the girls. Then finds their mother. Then he and his sergeant have a chat with the mother. A little amateur social work is done and then everyone goes home. I'm surprised that took twenty-two minutes.

The publishers should be ashamed of themselves for putting this doodle up for sale as if it were a polished piece of work.

If this had been my only exposure to Ann Cleeves' writing, it would also have been my last.

Don't bother with this one. ( )

Sometimes random chance puts you in the right place at the right time to make a difference. Such is the situation detective Matthew Venn finds himself in as The Girls On The Shore: A Detective Mathew Venn Short Story by Ann Cleeves begins. If things had not been quiet in recent days at the police station, if he did not have a lot of time off accumulated, he would not have been taking the morning off and hanging out at home. If he had not been at his kitchen window, as he was, he would not have seen the two girls out on the beach.

But Detective Inspector Matthew Venn was home, and this was there to see the two very young girls out on the beach. It is January, cold and windy with ice on the ground, and the girls clearly are not dressed to be out there. They are dressed in school uniforms. They are doing nothing but staring out at the water.

Why? He has no idea. It is a school morning and he becomes increasingly concerned about them as he makes his way out to them.

Detective Inspector Venn eventually gets the young girls to come back to his house. It quickly becomes clear that something is going on with their mother who might be nearby. After getting his sergeant, Jen Rafferty, to come to his house and keep an eye on the girls, he goes back out to look for their missing mother.

What follows is an interesting 14-page mystery short story. A tale that becomes increasingly complicated and ends in an unexpected way.

Also included in the short read is a short preview of approximately the same number of pages of the new book, The Rising Tide. This book is the latest in the DVI Vera Stanhope series.

About 10 pages of this 36-page read is title page, author bio, listing of books, publisher info, and other filler material. Something to keep in mind when considering the price of this short read. Fortunately, I was able to get my copy from the Libby/OverDrive app via the Dallas Public Library System.

Kevin R. Tipple ©2022 ( )

1 hour on audiobook

Dark and moody, just the thing to tide us over until the next book!

Detective Inspector Matthew Venn is at home alone when he spies two young girls in the distance, alone on the beach. He is immediately concerned: the girls are school-age and should be in classes, not wandering around the deserted and lonely shore.

Matthew talks them back to his house: the dunes are remote and can be a dangerous place. But he’s uncomfortable with children, in general, and Olivia and Imogen, in particular, so he calls his colleague, Detective Sergeant Jen Rafferty, an experienced investigator, and a mother, to come over and take things in hand.

As the afternoon wears on, Matthew and Jen work in tandem to determine what the two girls are up to. But soon, they realize there’s something dark going on in the two girls’ lives, not to mention their missing mother.

The Girls on the Shore is just a tidbit of a story, giving us a small glimpse into Venn’s character and psyche and a chance for Jen Rafferty to take a lead role. The length and nature of this work led me to feel it was a tease to keep readers on the hook, in a good way, until the next in the series is published and that worked for me! Besides, it has a gorgeous cover.

The product also contains chapters of the latest Vera Stanhope release. ( )

THE GIRLS ON THE SHORE is a Detective Matthew Venn short story written by Ann Cleeves. Matthew Venn is the main character in a new series by Ms. Cleeves’ TWO RIVERS series.
While the short story was, indeed, very short I enjoyed it and I did like the insights into the Matthew Venn character.
The short story was bundled with the first chapter of an upcoming Vera series book THE RISING TIDE, to be published in September of 2022.
The short story and first chapter of THE RISING TIDE were offered free with my Kindle account.
A welcome ‘gift’. **** ( )