A Winter Grave: a chilling new mystery set in the Scottish highlands

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This chance discovery leads to a rollercoaster of secrets and intrigue and the body count starts to mount in this bleak and remote landscape. Investigating a spectacular natural ice cave, she looks up and encounters a man staring back at her, frozen into the ceiling with a terrified death mask. Set against a backdrop of a frighteningly plausible near-future, A WINTER GRAVE is Peter May at his page-turning, passionate and provocative best. His skill in creating likeable central characters is undimmed and, as ever, he excels at creating a sense of place. DI Cameron Brodie from the Glasgow police force and pathologist Dr Sita Roy are sent to Kinlochleven to investigate.

There are only a few characters involved: Cameron Brodie, his daughter, the journalist, the whistle blower, the pathologist, the policeman and the hotel owner. I have one event in London and a short Scottish tour where I will talk about the book and sign copies. After a slightly rocky introduction, Brodie finds that he gets on quite well with police pathologist Dr Sita Roy, and both are relieved when their eVTOL (electric helicopter) sets them down safely during an ice storm, in the blacked-out village of Kinlochleven. The power was out, there was no hot food or drink to be had, and the body of George Younger, which had been refrigerated in a cake cabinet, was rapidly thawing.The descriptions of the lonely, beautiful place Brodie visited and of the people he met there are wonderfully described, and I was surprised to discover that I now cared about the fate of this man; I wanted him to find answers, to resolve the unresolved. And for those here on GR who read Dutch: I reviewed Firemaker, The Killing Room (De moordkamer) and Chinese Whispers (De seriemoordenaar).

There are flashbacks to the present with climate change deniers and greedy industries where profits are placed ahead of the earth's health, and the population feels helpless midst scientific warnings. Cameron has personal reasons for wanting to take on the case and his backstory is revealed in flashbacks that begin in 2021. The setting is the wild and cold highlands of Scotland, made even wilder and colder due to the climate change. It wasn’t until now, with his own death imminent, that he had been moved, finally, to drag all the skeletons from the closet, and lay them out to be judged. May ha la grandissima qualità di non annegare di chiacchere inutili i suoi romanzi-gialli, tirando dritto al punto, e concedendosi spazio in più solo per la descrizione della natura e dell'ambiente, che riesce sempre a restituire con tinte mozzafiato.Nearing retirement and recently in receipt of a devastating health diagnosis, he surveys the ruin which climate change has wreaked on the city since it hosted the COP 26 summit. A well-crafted plot, with action and intrigue, twists and red herrings, and a nail-biting climax, make this is another Peter May winner. The blackout prevents instant analysis of the likely killer’s DNA, as well as stopping their eVTOL being recharged, effectively grounding them. I was confused and found that I wasn’t enjoying this tale much at all - I was already considering giving up on it.

Younger’s body has been kept in a refrigerated cabinet of a local hotel, and pathologist Dr Sita Roy, has uncovered some very interesting facts about him, something which puts herself and Brodie in danger. But certain incidents add an atmosphere of menace, and then there’s another murder, which won’t be the last before Brodie departs the Kinlochleven. He has also won several literature awards in France, received the USA's Barry Award for The Blackhouse, the first in his internationally bestselling Lewis Trilogy; and in 2014 was awarded the ITV Specsavers Crime Thriller Book Club Best Read of the Year award for Entry Island. Because of this a quarter of the world’s population has been moved due to hunger and flooding, forcing refuges no other option but to escape into other countries. Il mix di futuro distopico, emergenza ambientale, ambientazione in Scozia (che però è diventata tipo Venezia), detective puro e duro con passato famigliare à la Mankell, descrizione naturalistiche come sempre mozzafiato .But why, they both wonder, was a journalist with no hill-walking experience take the difficult trail up to a high peak?