There's more to come for Vera reveals creator Ann Cleeves as TV show set to end

Vera fans who were dismayed to learn the TV series is coming to an end can now take comfort at hearing that the much-loved detective will live on.

What's more, she is already back at her case-cracking best. Vera's creator Ann Cleeves launches her new book The Dark Wives this week and it soon sees the DCI immersed in two murder investigations.

The author, from Whitley Bay, first introduced her hat and mac-wearing sleuth to the world back in 1999 in The Crow Trap - the debut novel in her Vera Stanhope series - and since then Vera has become known and loved across the world through both the books and the long-running TV drama it inspired.

• Read more: Delight of Australian Vera fan who met TV star and 'favourite author' Ann Cleeves

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Now that filming has wrapped up in the North East on a new ITV series, which is marks its star Brenda Blethyn's final outing as Vera, fans will be wondering what next might be in store for Ann's creation. And the answer - in the first instance - comes in The Dark Wives, the new Vera novel that had its official launch on Thursday night at an event in North Tyneside.

But there will be plenty more to come too. The award-winning author, whose other books include the Jimmy Perez and Matthew Venn series which inspired, respectively, TV dramas Shetland and The Long Call, has no shortage of ideas and her fans can rest assured that Vera will tackle many more murky crimes in the future.

Ann writes a book a year and each series takes its turn so a next Vera novel can be expected in three years' time. The Dark Wives is the 11th book in her Northumberland-set series and Thursday's publication day was marked with An Evening With Ann Cleeves event at The Exchange 1856 in North Shields which included a question-and-answer session, with Ann being interviewed about it by journalist and presenter Steph McGovern.

Ahead of the night, Ann discussed the inspiration behind the new story which sees Vera investigate the murder of a man who worked in a care home for troubled teens, which also has a missing resident. A second body then follows, found near standing stones called Three Dark Wives which give the story its name.

Ann had the idea for it after listening to a BBC radio programme about children’s care homes and the companies making profits from them. Before becoming a best-seller author, Ann worked in a range of jobs including spells in child care and as a probation of officer and, while things have changed since then, she says of the programme: "It made me feel a bit queasy, these companies making a profit out of our troubled young people.

"The whole privatisation of the care system needs to be looked at again." She worries about troubled youngsters in care - who are very much victims, often of chaotic homes and domestic abuse, she says - being let down.

"We need more regulation of the companies which set up the homes." She fears the environment is bad for the children, who often find themselves placed miles away from relatives.

"It's just very sad. I know we're short of money and resources but I think it would be great if local authorities could take them back into their care. It shouldn't be about making a profit."

Ann reveals that her new story will feature in the final Vera TV series when it airs, having made it - just - into the last of the filming, when she was able to let the production team have an early proof copy of the book. With there being so many more Vera episodes than books, the TV drama features lots of original stories alongside the novel adaptations.

Knowing that her new tale will be in the last series feels "special" says Ann. She is no longer writing her Shetland series but next plans a standalone novel, set in the Orkney Islands, to be followed by a Venn in two years' time. Then it will be time again for Vera.

Over the year that Ann sets aside for a book, the writing period is just a part of it. Another is the editing "to make it as good as it can be". While she can do some work on a train journey or a busy airport if she has to, she says: "I need a bit of quiet."

There certainly aren't any plans for Vera to hang up that hat, which will come as a huge relief to readers who absolutely love the down-to-earth character. Ann says: "I love the writing. It doesn't feel like work.

"I get up, sit at the kitchen table and make stuff up!" She suggests she would not know what to do when she gets up if she didn't know she would be writing something.

"I don't feel under any pressure. I just love it. If I'd stopped enjoying it, I would have stopped doing it." Such is readers' level of interest and investment in her work that her publisher Pan Macmillan has also started republishing Ann's early books - such as A Bird in the Hand, a pre-Vera 1986 murder mystery - and she can spot the difference in her writing style.

"It's much more spare in a way," she notes. "But you grow in confidence." Key for her is understanding characters and she mentions a quote from Maigret author Georges Simenon who said it was not his role to judge but to understand.

"I didn't want to write about monsters, about what we can't understand." And that ability to understand is central to Vera's cleverly-crafted character too. As for what lies in her future, Ann just says: "That's another two books away!"