“A Trap for the Raven” by Ann Cleeves is another book added to the treasury of classic English detective fiction. However, unlike many colleagues in the genre, what most interests Ann Cleeves here is not only the crime itself and the procedure for exposing the murderer, but also a detailed analysis of the events that led to the catastrophe.
At the center of the story are three women who are extremely different from one another—Rachel, Anne, and Grace. They find it hard to agree with each other, yet they are forced to spend several weeks in the same house on green hills and windy moors in Northern England, checking the development site for rare plant and animal specimens.
Their work is interrupted by the murder of one of them. Detective Vera Stanhope, who came to investigate, doesn’t want them to leave the house on the hills: she believes the killer will return, making it easier to catch them using a lure. Is the victim’s death connected to the environmental survey—or is someone from the local village settling old scores with the women? The fates of the main heroines are intertwined in a strange way, and they have to figure out these connections in order to understand the logic of the killer. But doing so in a cottage in deserted hills that they cannot leave—like crows in a trap—isn’t easy at all…