‘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.