The Baby-Snatcher

Before Shetland and Vera, Ann Cleeves wrote the Inspector Ramsay series featuring a talented, brilliant detective—now in print for the first time in the US.

Marilyn Howe and her mother Kathleen are an inseparable duo, until one night Kathleen doesn’t come home . . .

Fifteen-year-old Marilyn turns up alone and frightened on Inspector Ramsay’s doorstep so he takes the young girl home to the isolated coastal community known as the Headland. And in the Howes’ dark and cluttered kitchen they find Kathleen safe and apparently well, though acting strange.

Six months later, Ramsay has more or less forgotten the incident, busy as he is on the trail of a local child abductor. Until he receives news that Mrs. Howe has disappeared once more. And for the second time he is drawn into the strange relationships of the families living on the lonely Headland . . . when a woman’s body washes up on the beach.

Author Biography

ANN CLEEVES is the multi-million copy bestselling author behind three hit television series—Shetland, starring Douglas Henshall, Vera, starring Academy Award Nominee Brenda Blethyn, and The Long Call, starring Ben Aldridge—all of which are watched and loved in the United States. All three are available on BritBox.

The first Shetland novel, Raven Black, won the Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger for best crime novel, and Ann was awarded the CWA Diamond Dagger in 2017. She was awarded the OBE in 2022 for services to reading and libraries. Ann lives in the United Kingdom.