The basic belief here at Cafethinking is that the Shetland TV series is great, and you should watch it, and that the books on which some of the characters are based are even better. Blue Lightning, the fourth Shetland novel by Ann Cleeves and two episodes in series 2 is a good case in point. A workable two-parter on the screen becomes something sensational on the page.

Cleeves, in fairness, has much more room than the TV guys in which to play. She can really explore what makes Fair Isle tick, and she uses the island community’s own residents and a cast of outsiders to really get into it. Jimmy Perez himself is both of the community and not: son of the lay preacher, heir to the croft, known to all…but also a policeman, now based in Lerwick and with a fiancée who, despite being open to relocation, is more at home in a north London pub with her friends than on the claustrophobic island. We have the benefit of considering what Fair Isle might be like for those who have tilled its land for generations, or for those for whom it provides a place to build a professional reputation or to recover from a romantic break-up.

Cleeves adds more aspects to the mix: the opening pages show just how wild and remote Fair Isle can be. There’s a storm and what becomes, essentially, a locked room mystery as the backstabbing birders bicker and bunker down. The tensions among the twitchers help us to understand what can happen when the elements keep on building up. As Perez’s inner voice puts it, even the islanders who don’t leave Fair Isle for months at a time become irritable when there is no longer the idea that you could leave if you wished. Perez himself erupts with fury when it looks like his father may be involved with the case: he questions his own abilities even more than usual as he is compromised – by the lack of forensic back up, by his family and friends around him, by his worries for Fran’s safety.

As is often the case in a good locked room, there are tensions some of which are recent and some of which have waited years to get to the boil. Everyone has a reason to bump off the difficult, acidic, predatory scientist. And the descriptions of the culture of birdwatching – far more cut-throat and competitive than you’d imagine – open a window into another world. The twitchers are passionate about their career or their hobby. Their obsession is easily transferable – they could be Swifties, or trainspotters or just really into Harry Potter or Stranger Things (or Shetland come to that) – and they have nothing much else in common than their excitement to see a trumpeter swan. A locked room in which you learn stuff (I thought the trumpeter swan was something made up by David Ogilvy) is a special treat.

There are two twists at the end. The redemption twist is perhaps a bit glib and possibly unearned. The other twist is really shocking and Perez’s anger and bitterness show a new depth to the character.

Compared with all that, the TV adaptation is a little flat. There’s excellent acting as ever from Douglas Henshall, Alison O’Donnell and the rest of the cast. But they can’t replicate the real feeling of the elements closing in, or the tensions within the birding community. The characters are (as in Red Bones) all very different from their counterparts in the novel, as are their potential motives for killing. It’s fine as it goes but I am, as ever, grateful to have experienced it in print as well as on screen.

More Shetland coverage here:

Raven Black

White Nights

Red Bones