Ann Cleeves New Detective Matthew Venn Book Coming In 2026

Last Updated on August 6, 2026

Ann Cleeves is one of those crime writers I feel I can relax with, even when the bodies start turning up.

Her novels are grounded, humane, and quietly funny, and she has a gift for making coastal landscapes feel as vivid as any character on the page.

With The Dying Light, she is bringing DI Matthew Venn back to North Devon for a fourth outing in the Two Rivers series, and I think it is going to be a big one for fans who enjoy tense investigations.

Scheduled for release on October 8, 2026, the book looks set to deepen Matthew’s world at the same time as Cleeves is carefully drawing the Vera Stanhope era to a close.

Ann Cleeves and the Two Rivers World

Ann Cleeves is the queen of long-running, character-led series that let us live alongside the detectives rather than just watch them solve puzzles.

She has already given us Vera Stanhope in Northumberland and Jimmy Perez in Shetland, and with the Two Rivers books, she has turned her attention to North Devon, an area she clearly enjoys exploring on the page.

Matthew Venn’s stories are steeped in estuaries, tidal flats, and small communities where everyone seems to know everyone else’s business, and that familiarity gives the mysteries a very intimate feel.

I also appreciate how she balances the crime plots with the detectives’ emotional lives. Matthew’s marriage to Jonathan, his strained history with a strict religious community, and his quiet, watchful nature all shape the way he works a case.

Cleeves has said this fourth novel may be her favorite of the Venn books so far, partly because she gets to delve deeper into Matthew and Jonathan’s relationship against the backdrop of a politically charged investigation.

The Dying Light: What We Know So Far

The Dying Light takes us back to North Devon in the middle of a scorching heatwave, which already adds a slightly oppressive edge to everything.

Matthew Venn is called to Tide House, a luxurious holiday home owned by rising political star Paul Armstrong, after the body of a young woman is found in the swimming pool.

Her best friend is missing, and because of Armstrong’s profile, the case immediately attracts heavy media attention and scrutiny, putting extra pressure on Venn and his team.

Before the young woman’s death, the two friends had been seen at a nearby music festival, the sort of local event that throws together visitors, long-term residents, and people passing through on seasonal work.

The early hints suggest they did not exactly blend quietly into the background: one of them had posted mocking videos on social media, sneering at the festival as parochial, which may have stirred up bad feeling in a community that already has its fair share of simmering tensions.

As further tragedy strikes during the heatwave, Venn and his colleagues are forced to pick through those tensions and ask who is protecting whom around the Armstrong family and their circle.

The deadliest truths here are the ones kept in the shadows, and Venn knows the real answers lie less in what people say than in what they refuse to discuss.

That fits perfectly with the tone of the series so far, where public respectability and private damage often collide.

Catching Up On The First Three Matthew Venn Books

If you are thinking about getting The Dying Light, it is worth knowing where Matthew has already been.

The series opens with The Long Call (2020), which introduces him as he returns to North Devon after leaving a strict evangelical community, only to be drawn into a murder that forces him to confront people from his past.

It lays the groundwork for his quiet, analytical style and for his complicated relationship with faith, belonging, and the idea of home.

The Heron’s Cry (2022) follows, keeping the action in the same region but shifting the focus to a more artistic and close-knit group when a body is found in a glassblower’s studio.

That book deepens our sense of Matthew’s team and brings Jonathan further into the frame, showing how Matthew’s personal and professional lives keep brushing up against each other in a small community.

Then we have The Raging Storm (2023), which pushes things into even wilder territory: a storm-lashed coastal setting, a mysterious death, and the kind of remote environment where a handful of people can feel completely cut off from the rest of the world.

Across these three novels, I think you really see Cleeves settle into what the Two Rivers series is going to be about. They’re not just solving crimes, but exploring how old loyalties, religious backgrounds, and local politics shape the way people behave when something terrible happens.

The Dying Light is positioned as the next step in that journey, bringing in a high-profile political figure, a luxurious holiday property, and a community under both literal and figurative heat.

Saying goodbye (slowly) to Vera Stanhope

While Matthew Venn is moving into his fourth case, Ann Cleeves has been very open that she is gently steering another beloved series towards its final chapter.

She has confirmed that there will be just one more Vera Stanhope novel after The Dark Wives, making the twelfth book the last time we meet Vera on the page.

The Dark Wives, published in 2024, was the eleventh full-length Vera novel and saw Vera investigating a murder linked to a care home for troubled teens, with local myth and wild Northumberland landscapes woven into the case.

On her official site, Cleeves explains that she wants to bring Vera’s story to a “natural end” instead of letting it run indefinitely, and she has reassured readers that she does not plan to kill Vera off.

She first shared the news at live events like the Bath Literature Festival and has repeated it in interviews and reader guides, making it clear that the twelfth book is designed as a proper farewell rather than a fade-out.

Importantly, she has also stressed that ending Vera does not mean stepping away from crime fiction: she is still writing the Two Rivers books, and she has no plans to retire from storytelling.