ANN CLEEVES

The inspiration behind Shetland and Vera shares her love for the hit show and the wilds of Scotland

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DREAM TEAM Shetland stars Jensen and O'Donnell

We may be seeing Ashley Jensen and Alison O'Donnell on our screens in the 10th season of BBC1's Shetland, but author Ann Cleeves has not finished with her original fictional cop, DI Jimmy Perez, played by Douglas Henshall in the first seven series.

The bestselling author and inspiration behind Shetland and Vera has moved Jimmy from Shetland to Orkney, where he is living with his fellow police officer partner Willow - and together they've become a crime-solving duo in her new novel The Killing Stones.

"It was going to be a standalone but all my series started off as standalones and I really enjoyed writing it - I can't wait to go back to Orkney, too, which is a very special place," Ann says. "It's much gentler than Shetland, it's more green, fertile, in a sense it's more Scottish."

Her last Shetland novel, Wild Fire, came out in 2018, when Jimmy was moving to Orkney with Willow so why did Ann bring him back?

"I thought, that's the end, I don't need to write any more about him, but then I get a kind of longing to go north again because I do love the islands, so it's about place, really, and about exploring how Jimmy might fit in to a new environment and how his setting up home with Willow and their son might mellow him a bit, make him easier, happier."

Ann has always loved isolated settings. She lives in Whitley Bay, North Tyneside, close to her two daughters and seven grandchildren, but has a long connection with both Shetland and Orkney, having worked on Fair Isle with an Orcadian who she kept in touch with.

She returned to Orkney for research and places she visited appear in the book.