Ann Cleeves is a British crime writer best known for creating the detectives Jimmy Perez, Vera Stanhope and Matthew Venn. All three of the series featuring these characters have been adapted for television; the ITV series Vera ran for fourteen years and the BBC's Shetland will return in 2026 for its eleventh series. Cleeves won the 2017 Diamond Dagger from the Crime Writers' Association for sustained excellence in crime fiction and was awarded an OBE in 2022 for her services to reading and libraries. She has chaired the programming group for the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival and the Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award.
