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

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It’s the year 2051, and the subject of climate change has been ignored for so long, and now it’s too late, with catastrophic changes taking place across the world. Huge areas of the world are under water, whilst others are too hot to be habitable. ABOUT 'A WINTER GRAVE': It is the year 2051. Warnings of climate catastrophe have been ignored, and vast areas of the planet are under water, or uninhabitably hot. A quarter of the world's population has been displaced by hunger and flooding, and immigration wars are breaking out around the globe as refugees pour into neighboring countries. It’s a gripping read, which sees the latest technology being used to deal with rising tides. New nuclear power stations at Ballachulish ensure Scotland has power. But extreme weather sees electricity and internet cut off, and Brodie stranded. The man had no interest in hillwalking. But he was found in a frozen grave in a difficult-to-reach spot above Kinlochleven. Murder in the mountains Here Oban book blogger Linda Boa gives The Press and Journal her take on May’s latest offering. She also has some questions for Peter May.

She shivered, in spite of standing in front of the flames. 'I don't like this place,' she said. 'I've spent half my life with corpses. But the thought of that dead man folded into the cake cabinet in the kitchen gives me the willies.'When the body of investigative journalist George Younger is discovered entombed in an ice tunnel in the Mamore Forest, veteran Glasgow detective Cameron Brodie volunteers to investigate. However, the investigation is just an ostensible reason; primarily he wishes to reconcile with the woman who discovered the body, his estranged daughter, Addie. The two haven’t spoken for over ten years, since the death of Brodie’s wife, Mel. Peter lives in South-West France with his wife, writer Janice Hally, and in 2016 both became French by naturalisation. (Peter May)

Glasgow Police DI Cameron Brodie, fresh from failing to get murder conviction due to technical complications, rejects his DCI’s request to accompany the pathologist to perform a post mortem on Younger, and, noting his expertise in hill walking, examine the scene. But then he receives a diagnosis adverse enough to change his mind. He was really in with the Chinese police,” says Peter. “It was like getting an introduction to the mafia from a made man! When I first went I was met at the airport by the police, which was a bit alarming. They just whisked me off to my hotel and then took me to the police university.” Climate change It’s exhausting, all my contemporaries were retiring so I thought, why can’t I retire? I wanted to read for pleasure and to get involved in music, which is the other big thing in my life. fivestarread #crime #detectivefiction #dystopian #familydrama #murdermystery #mystery #smalltownfiction #thriller #suspense #scottishnoir I worried, initially, that May was being drawn into the controversial climate change debate. Not at all. Instead he makes a massive comment on it, one which I - and I hope many others - have worried about, and will continue to argue. I don't want to give the plot away, so I won't comment further on how the plot develops. Suffice it to say that this is food for thought, and if you care about the future of the world, this book is essential reading, because it is a stark reminder of what ought to be being considered.No idea. But someone was out there in the hall listening to us talking in here. I don't know how much they could hear, or why they would want to, but they ran off through the snow when I went after them with my torch.'

But here in Scotland, a body has been found frozen in the ice near Loch Leven, that of one Charles Younger, an investigative journalist with the Scottish Herald who had been reported missing three months earlier, and Detective Inspector Cameron Brodie volunteers to travel there along with the doctor who will do the post mortem, Dr Sita Roy. Cameron Brodie, a veteran Glasgow detective, volunteers to be flown north to investigate Younger's death, but he has more than a murder enquiry on his agenda. He has just been given a devastating medical prognosis by his doctor and knows the time has come to face his estranged daughter who has made her home in the remote Highland village. In the autumn of 2021, Peter watched and read about the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow with a growing sense of concern. Just three months earlier, the United Nations Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had published their scariest prediction yet: that on current carbon emissions we were set to reach a 1.5º Celsius increase in global temperatures within the next two decades, leading to catastrophic environmental disaster. Q: In your research, was this how the scientists you spoke to saw the Scotland of 2051, with the seas rising due to melting ice caps, etc? So to what to make of a story that’s such a mix of parts, some that drew me in and others that pushed me away? It’s a difficult story to sum up and also a hard book to rate as I had such mixed feelings about the various elements here. The mix allows the story to develop in the way it does but there’s also a degree of incongruity about the whole thing. In conclusion, I’m driven toward a three star rating overall.

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DISCLOSURE: Thank you to Quercus Books via Netgalley for providing a digital ARC of A Winter Grave by Peter May for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions. I had never thought about being a journalist but I got a place on an NCTJ training course in Edinburgh, trained for a year and got a job on the Paisley Daily Express.” A young meteorologist takes a work based trek up a mountain and is faced with a dead body, frozen in ice. This chance discovery leads to a rollercoaster of secrets and intrigue and the body count starts to mount in this bleak and remote landscape. Q: I’m told it was the COP 26 summit which made you take more serious notice of climate change. Is your hope that, by presenting it like this, more people will pay attention to the issues of climate change and what the future could hold? A Winter Grave is not an easy read; the near future is quite bleak so to say, in more than one meaning. It is, however, a great dystopian thriller which will set you thinking.

A Winter Grave takes place in the not-too-distant future, in 2051. It begins with the discovery of the body of an investigative reporter. He chose to write about it in the context of a thriller and that’s the same approach he has taken with A Winter Grave. And Brodie is determined to take what may be his last opportunity to tell his daughter what he has been silent about for the ten years since her mother’s death. As another storm closes off communications and the possibility of escape, Brodie must face up not only to the ghosts of his past, but to a killer determined to bury forever the chilling secret that George Younger's investigations had threatened to expose. A Winter Grave is set in Scotland but it’s not a Scotland we would recognise. The year is 2051 and Scotland has achieved independence and rejoined the European Union. However, at the same time, the effects of climate change on the world have become all too obvious. Whilst parts of the world are suffering extreme heat, prompting the migration of millions of people from Africa and Asia to Europe, great swathes of Scotland are now under water due to rising sea levels caused by the melting of the Greenland ice sheets and the country now has the climate of northern Norway.So I had no intention of writing A Winter Grave. It was only because I had read a synopsis of the IPCC’s latest report and it was chilling and unequivocal – something has to be done this decade. COP26 was coming along and this was the chance to do this and I followed what happened there very carefully.” Dismayed In 2003 I read Firemaker, the first thriller by Peter May, and although the details are a bit fuzzy, I still remember how impressed I was with this book. And for those here on GR who read Dutch: I reviewed Firemaker, The Killing Room (De moordkamer) and Chinese Whispers (De seriemoordenaar). Younger’s body has been kept refrigerated in a cabinet and what Brodie and pathologist Dr. Sita Roy uncover during the autopsy puts both their lives in danger. Brodie must fast his past as well as a killer who is desperate to keep secret what George Younger’s investigations had threatened to expose. Inevitably rising sea levels from melting Polar ice caps causes widespread flooding, altering the shape and nature of all our coastlines.