Ann Cleeves Ann Cleeves Ann Cleeves (born 1954) is an English crime-writer. In 2006 she won the inaugural Duncan Lawrie Dagger, the richest crime-writing prize in the world, for her novel "Raven Black". Cleeves studied English at Sussex University but dropped out. She then took up various jobs including cook, 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 dramatized as the TV detective series "Vera" and the Jimmy Perez novels as the series "Shetland". In 2014 Cleeves was awarded an Honorary Doctorate
Dead Boy Detectives written by the then current writer Peter Gross. In 2001 they received their own four-issue mini-series "Sandman Presents: Dead Boy Detectives" by writer Ed Brubaker and penciller Bryan Talbot. They have also made appearances in the ongoing series "The Books of Magic", which was also based on a Neil Gaiman work. Jill Thompson briefly depicted the characters in her graphic novel "", which retold the events of "Season of Mists" from Death's perspective. In 2005, the writer/artist later produced a manga-style graphic novel starring the characters, titled "The Dead Boy Detectives". The pair returned in the "Vertigo Anthology" series, a