Cleeves was born in Herefordshire and brought up in north Devon where she attended Barnstaple Grammar School;[2] she studied English at the University of Sussex but dropped out and then took up various jobs, including cook at the Fair Isle bird observatory, auxiliary coastguard, probation officer, library outreach worker and child care officer.

[3] Cleeves's work was first optioned for television after producer Elaine Collins discovered a copy of one of the Vera novels, The Crow Trap, while searching for holiday reading in an Oxfam shop in north London, where she lived.

[15] These novels, except for The Glass Room, have been dramatized in the television series Vera on ITV, which stars Brenda Blethyn in the title role.

In 2013, Red Bones was dramatised by David Kane for BBC television as the first episode of the series Shetland, which stars Douglas Henshall as Detective Inspector Jimmy Perez.

[16] The first book is the adaptive basis for The Long Call ITV series starring Ben Aldridge as DI Matthew Venn.