Ann Cleeves Press. 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
Spencer-Stanhope family Spencer-Stanhope family Spencer-Stanhope is the family name of British landed gentry who for 200 years held Cannon Hall, a country house in South Yorkshire that since the 1950s has been a museum. The hyphenated form of the name is more common in British orthography, but American sources often omit the hyphen and alphabetize by "Stanhope." Throughout the 19th and early 20th century, several family members (by birth and marriage) were active in the art world. They were related through John Spencer Stanhope (born 1787), a classical antiquarian, writer, and explorer, and his wife, Lady Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Coke of