Ann Cleeves is in familiar territory with her Two Rivers police procedural series. It’s set in North Devon where she spent her childhood and where she retreated after the death of her husband.

I don’t know this part of the country but the first two books in the series have persuaded me to put this area on my list of places to visit. Cleeves shows there is more to Devon than the thatched cottages, rolling hills and cream teas beloved of the thousands of holidaymakers who stream down the M5 in summer.

Though we get to name check some of the key tourist locations like Appledore, Barnstable and Ilfracombe, the books are more interesting when they take us deep into the heart of the countryside or among the screeching, swirling birds of the estuary where the rivers Taw and Torridge converge.

The road climbed steeply and then they were looking down at the village of Lovacott: a group of houses clustered around a small square, which was hardly more than the main street widened. A shop that seemed to sell everything, a pub. There was nothing picturesque here. No thatch. (The Long Call)

The Long Call

This is the stamping ground of Detective Inspector Matthew Venn and his small team: the party-loving Sergeant Jen Rafferty and eager-beaver junior officer Ross May.

In the first book in the series, The Long Call, the trio are embroiled in the hunt for the killer of a man whose body is washed up on the beach at Crow Point, a favourite spot with local bird watchers. Their investigation leads them to the Woodyard, a former lumberyard now thriving as an arts venue, a community hub and a centre for people with learning difficulties.

The case means Matthew must connect again with The Brethren, the strict evangelical sect he left in his early twenties. Shunned by the other members, he also became persona non grata in the eyes of his parents. The breach has never been repaired — Matthew doesn’t even feel he’d be welcome at his father’s funeral. But his investigation forces him to confront the past.

Book two — The Heron’s Cry — starts with the discovery that a health campaigner has been stabbed to death with the shard from a glass vase. Dr Yeo seemed an unlikely victim — he was well liked and respected so maybe he just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. As DI Venn and his team dig into the case, they begin to wonder if Dr Yeo’ died because of his investigation into the failings of the local health trust over the suicide of a young patient.

The plots in both books are solid and well constructed though the pace likely won’t suit readers who prefer more moments of high tension. Since the methodical details of investigation and detection don’t make for rivetting reading. the success of these types of novel comes down to the strengths of the central characters.

Here lay my primary issue with the novel — Matthew Venn is no Inspector Morse or Chief Inspector Armand Gamache. He doesn’t have the charisma of either of those figures but was rather lack lustre I felt. Calm and methodical in his professional life, in his private life he has deep feelings of insecurity, particularly when it comes to his relationship with his husband Jonathan. Venn is constantly worried about upsetting Jonathan even to the point where he won’t ask him to clear up the cottage before heading to bed. I thought that by book two Venn would have learned to be more relaxed but that wasn’t to be, if anything his fears become more pronounced. He’s a decent man for sure but just doesn’t have much oomph.

It’s left to his two team members to provide the “colour” in this series. Jen Rafferty in particular leaps off the page as a blunt-talking Scouser who has a tendency to drink too much and party too hard. Her dedication to her work presents a challenge to her responsibilities as a single parent of two teenage children. Once an investigation is under way she tends to forget to buy groceries or to check in with the youngsters left to fend for themselves.

The dynamics between her and the least experienced member of the team are amusing. Poor Ross May is such an eager beaver he wants to be in on the action on every possible opportunity but is too often given what he considers to be the most boring tasks. He’d much rather be interrogating suspects than chasing bank accounts and trawling phone records. So when he does get given an important job you can almost see his eyes start to shine. Maybe the series would have been stronger if Matthew Venn was out of the picture and we get the Rafferty-Ross double act instead.