Vera (TV Series) The Crow Trap (2011) User Reviews

Slow to get going, but unpredictable mystery

[gridoon2024 · 7/10 · 5 July 2013]

Vera and her team investigate the bludgeoning to death of a middle-aged woman who owned a piece of land that a big company wants to dig right through for a quarry. She was fiercely opposed to the idea of selling her property, so suspicions fall to those who would benefit from her death. But a surprising discovery about a phone call she made just a few hours before she was killed forces Vera and her team to re-examine what they had taken for granted - and then, just like it happened in the previous two episodes of the series as well, a second dead body turns up....

This episode takes a while before it grips the viewer, but it scores extra points for unpredictability; I imagine that most people will not be able to figure this mystery out before the screenwriter wants them to. Vera is noticeably nicer than before to her staff this time, while Joe appears to be having family trouble. *** out of 4.

good, but always that air of sadness

[blanche-2 · 7/10 · 28 January 2014]

Bella Furness isn't killed by a person -- she's murdered by crows she comes upon in her barn, but they're not there when Vera investigates.

Furness' body is found by an environmental investigator, Anne Preece, who is looking into whether or not there are any problems prohibiting building a quarry. The company that wants the quarry is run by Godfrey Waugh, who turns out to be having an affair with Anne. Conflict of interest, maybe? Bella didn't want the quarry but now her heirs are poised to sell for big bucks. So they are suspects, along with Godfrey and maybe Anne.

Then there's Bev MacDonald, who is nearly insane with the disappearance of her child 12 years earlier, for which she blames the victim even though she had an alibi.

Then Vera finds out that Bella had actually decided to sell, which means that someone opposed to it with her, Edmund Fulwell, is now a subject.

Soon there's another murder, and Vera wades her way through this melange of suspects and motives.

Brenda Blethyn is a marvel as Vera, a sad woman, having lost her father, and a solitary one. And in her world, sad souls are more common than happy ones. Blethyn matches the stark terrain of the area, the houses in the middle of nowhere, and a kind of brooding atmosphere.

Really excellent series with great cases.

Atmospheric and sad and a major twist at the end

[safenoe · 9/10 · 10 January 2017]

I started watching Vera recently and I must admit I sometimes get Brenda Blethyn mixed up with Brenda Fricker for some unknown reason I guess. Brenda F. was in Home Alone 2, and Brenda B. is awesome in Vera which captures the atmosphere of rural Northumbria quite chillingly if you ask me.

Here the mystery of a lost child is the overarching plot line in The Crow Trap. This episode guest stars Daniela Nardini (who is from the family that created Nardini's in Scotland) and it's great to see her continue her acting career after This Life.

DS Ashworth's wife features, although we barely get a glimpse of her as she suffers post-natal depression, putting the lives of her three children at risk. I'm surprised she didn't use her buggy pram to ram through innocent foreigners on the sidewalk screaming "EXCUSE ME!!!!!!" thus unleashing a torrent of anger and rage because of post-natal depression, as serious as it is. EXCUSE ME!!!!! Although I think mothers with newborns in places like Aleppo don't have time to suffer post-natal depression I guess. EXCUSE ME!!!!!!

First class episode, Rooks aplenty.

[Sleepin_Dragon · 10/10 · 17 November 2017]

Vera is on the case of Bella Furness, an old associate who is lured to a barn and murdered.

This was the episode of Vera that got me hooked on the show, I'd enjoyed the previous two offerings, but this third one had true quality. A superb story, very sad, quite bleak, but easy to follow and intriguing.

The acting throughout is exceptional, Susie Trayling and Daniela Nardini are both particularly good, but standout performance must belong to Elizabeth Carling, an actress I've always loved in comedy primarily, but here she is superb as troubled Bev MacDonald, the interviews with Vera and conclusion are fantastic.

Vera has developed so much as a character, Blethyn made this part her own, she's caring, brash, abrasive, cheeky, what a character actress.

Brilliant. 10/10

The Crow Trap

[Prismark10 · 6/10 · 5 July 2017]

A strong episode this as the suspects are long and varied. A woman Bella Furness has been murdered, an environmental investigator Anne Preece finds the body. Bella was opposed to selling her land to Godfrey Waugh, a local businessman who wants to dig a quarry. Her stepson now Bella is out of the way now decides to sell the land and put his father in an old people's home.

When Vera investigates she finds that Anne Preece is also having an affair with Waugh, who is determined to buy up the surrounding land, however he is confident that it just upping the price that matters. Vera also has to contend with a distraught a mother who believes Bella had abducted her son many years earlier. It was a case that Vera had worked on.

There area lot of strands here which come together, even a side issue about Joe being stressed about his wife and kids as he confides in Godfrey Waugh's wife. We even have an anti capitalist radical with a violent streak who was friends with Bella.

Vera stoically investigates, there is regrets about the the abduction of the child, an investigation where the parents were initially suspected. Yet Vera is always cunning and believes that the proposed excavation area holds clues to the mystery.