The Shetland series of novels by author Ann Cleeves are a great series about a very different part of the world. Taking place on the islands north of Scotland, it’s a very insular world. Yet, crime still happens. Thin Air is the sixth book in the series and takes the usual cast of characters to the northernmost island, Unst. I found myself looking at a map to grasp the traveling that takes place during the story, as there’s quite a bit of movement via ferry rides.

Two couples have traveled to Unst for the wedding of one of their friends to a man from Shetland. Lowrie Malcolmson is originally from Shetland and is marrying Caroline Lawson. The two are intending to settle down in Shetland as well. This is a bit of a shock to Polly, one of Caroline’s friends from college who has come north for the wedding. Caroline, Polly, and Elizabeth have been close friends since university. Polly is struggling with the feeling that she will be alone since Elizabeth is already married, and now Caroline is moving away.

The morning after the celebration, Elizabeth has seemingly disappeared into thin air, leaving behind an email sent to Polly that reads almost as a suicide note. While Polly and Elizabeth’s husband are worried about Eleanor’s whereabouts, Caroline seems disconnected from the fact that one of her closest friends has gone missing. There is talk that the ghost of Peery Lizzie, a young girl found drowned many years before, has been seen on the beach. Rumor has it that a sighting of the ghost of Peery Lizzie means the person will soon die.

As Jimmie Perez, Sandy Wilson, and Willow Reeve investigate the disappearance, they uncover information from the past that is having an impact on the present. By the end of the book, the real story behind Peery Lizzie is known as well as what happened to Elizabeth.

Anne Cleeves’ style is that we learn more about the people involved in the crime as the story goes on. In the beginning, it seems to be just three university friends on their last holiday together, where one of them is getting married. As the story goes on, we learn more about them and the secrets that they never thought would come to light. This is done by intense investigation and questioning. Jimmie has a tendency to ask a question and stay silent even after he has been given an answer. That tendency towards silence is something that people struggle with and have a natural inclination to fill. This often results in people revealing more than they intended.

There’s not a lot of action here. Everything is pretty much character-driven. Jimmie is still dealing with trying to get back to a “normal” life after the death of his fiancée two books earlier. He’s balancing raising her daughter with trying to rediscover what life is like for himself. There’s a lot of introspection while he’s investigating what happened to Eleanor. I like how Cleeves shows that these professionals aren’t so single-minded that life falls away while they are working. It’s nice to realize that, as intrepid and skilled as the three investigators are, they also have the concerns that the rest of us have on any given day.

I did not guess what had happened. There were so many red herrings and so many possibilities that I couldn’t figure out what was going on until it was revealed. This is one of the things I love about Cleeves’ writing. The setting of the Shetland Islands works as a very insular community where people tend to always know each other’s business, but at the same time, everyone is somewhat hesitant to talk about it. Living in a rural area myself, I can see a lot of similarities in how these communities function.

Thin Air is a great book, but I wouldn’t recommend starting the series here. If you’re interested at all, go back to the beginning and start there. They are definitely worth it. There’s background to the characters of Sandy and Jimmie that readers will miss if they pick up the series in the middle. I think it can be done, but this entire series is so well-done I don’t know why you would want to.

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