 Cleeves was born in Herefordshire and brought up in north Devon where she attended Barnstaple Grammar School; she studied English at the University of Sussex but dropped out and then took up various jobs including cook at the Fair Isle bird observatory, auxiliary coastguard, probation officer, library outreach worker and child care officer.She lives in Whitley Bay, and is widowed with two daughters.The Vera Stanhope novels have been dramatised as the TV detective series "Vera" and the Jimmy Perez novels as the series "Shetland".