Ann Cleeves on creating Vera Stanhope

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Crime novelist Ann Cleeves speaks to Front Row’s Mark Lawson about her slow rise to success and the character that made her a household name – D.I. Vera Stanhope, played by Brenda Blethyn in the ITV television drama Vera. Ann Cleeves is the award-winning author of five books starring Vera, which has sparked two series of the drama, with a third series in production. Now she is working with Elaine Collins, the executive producer of Vera, to dramatise another series of her books which will become a two-part TV drama for BBC One called Shetland.