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

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Arriving during an ice storm, Brodie and pathologist Dr. Sita Roy, find themselves the sole guests at the inappropriately named International Hotel, where Younger's body has been kept refrigerated in a cake cabinet. But evidence uncovered during his autopsy places the lives of both Brodie and Roy in extreme jeopardy. This is set in a futuristic Scotland in a world that has been ravaged by climate changes. We’re only a handful of decades ahead and the landscape and environmental narrative is all very plausible which makes it even the more chilling a possibility, pun intended. This is a compelling blend of an environmental/political thriller with a puzzling mystery. There’s humour although this rightly diminishes as danger levels rise, there’s plenty of tension, excitement accompanied by a building menace and peril. There are some good plot twists that keep you hooked, the pace is fast and there are some Hollywood action movie worthy scenes which give a dystopian feel. Throughout it all there is atmosphere in abundance in the Highlands setting with cruel weather to further highlight the hazardous situations. Younger's body has been refrigerated at a creepy hotel where he and Sita are the only guests. Her findings suggest the cause of his death and other troubling evidence. What is discovered puts the lives of Sita and Brodie in extreme jeopardy and leads to several more deaths. His daughter is still rejecting Brodie, and his time to reconcile is running out. There are some intense, breathtaking actions, and a political coverup is revealed.

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

Cameron Brodie is an experienced policeman who’s just received a devastating health prognosis. As a keen hillwalker, he is asked to fly to the village to ascertain whether the death was accidental, or more sinister. 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. Many things are strangely different in 2051, while others are bluntly the same. May sets the story in a politically different Scotland. There are advances in technology, developments in transportation, and changes in the environment; there are also expected and unexpected complications in all areas. 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.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. Glasgow detective Cameron Brodie volunteers to investigate Younger’s death, but he has other plans as well as the investigation in mind. He has plans to have conversations with his estranged daughter who is based in the remote Highland village. 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. A: No one knows for certain which way the climate will go in the future. But my scenario is based on one very plausible possibility. That increased temperatures, and a faster than anticipated melting of the Greenland ice sheet, floods the North Atlantic with ice cold fresh water. A world of temperature extremes This could slow or stop the Gulf Stream, which is what brings temperate weather to Western Europe and the British Isles. With equatorial temperatures creating an unliveable wilderness, forcing hot air north to deform the Jet Stream, ice cold air is dragged down from the Polar Vortex. Thus creating a world of temperature extremes.

A Winter Grave by Peter May | Goodreads

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. The dead man is investigative reporter, George Younger who has been missing for three months after going missing on a supposed walking holiday. Younger was no walker making his discovery on a mountain-top near the Highland village of Kinlochleven unexplainable. 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?

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As Brodie investigates the death of a man found frozen in the ice of a snow tunnel, it becomes clear his enemy is not just the person or persons responsible for the man’s death but the weather as well. Ferocious storms have become a frequent occurrence for the residents of Kinlochleven, resulting in power cuts and the loss of communications with the outside world for days at a time. Venturing out into a particularly violent storm, Brodie witnesses the extreme weather conditions for himself. ‘He seemed to be driving headlong into the gale. Hailstorms flew out of the darkness like sparks, deflecting off the windscreen… He could barely see the road ahead of him, hail blowing around and drifting like snow on the recently cleared tarmac.’ 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 Book Genre: Crime, Cultural, Dystopia, Fiction, Murder Mystery, Mystery, Science Fiction, Scotland, Suspense, Thriller 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. Someone is trying to conceal some extremely crucial information in this Highland village, something that cost George Younger his life. And, as yet another vicious storm closes off the village, together with all communications, Brodie will discover that Younger’s body won’t be the last!

Winter Grave (Audio Download): Peter May, Peter Forbes A Winter Grave (Audio Download): Peter May, Peter Forbes

With comms and the internet still down, and the Ice storm having cut off the village, Brodie continues to investigate this puzzling murder. 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. Once again, Peter May has returned to Scotland with a complex novel that combines climate apocalyptic changes, murder mystery and a domestic situation that has left a policeman’s relationship with his daughter severed for the past 10 years. As the story begins, we are in the year 2051, in a very altered Scotland and a very altered world. While the equatorial world is now too hot to sustain life, Scotland has become a country divided between rain and blizzards. Coastal areas are gone. Travel is by new evolved methods that go limited distances. But crime still exists. Set in 2051, so not that far in the future, the world has undergone massive climate and political change. Many areas of the world are under water; others too hot to be habitable, and if you think that there's a refugee problem now, just wait . . .Peter kindly agreed to answer a few questions on what inspired him to write this futuristic “cli-fi” novel. Inevitably rising sea levels from melting Polar ice caps causes widespread flooding, altering the shape and nature of all our coastlines. This is a chilling novel – both literally and metaphorically. Set in the year 2051, after decades of politicians ignoring and denying the effects of climate change, the equatorial regions are now far too hot for human habitation, whole swathes of low-lying areas are totally submerged in the sea and, because of the destruction of the Gulf Stream, Scotland now suffers winters of stormy Arctic severity. 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.

Winter Grave | Goldsboro Books A Winter Grave | Goldsboro Books

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.' While initially these threads may have felt a bit disparate, they came to flow well together for me, filling in aspects of the story as and when needed for the sake of all the characters involved. May is expert at creating settings of all kinds, here majestic, beautiful, threatening, and deadly. He also can devise plots that are complex but are not overdone. He cares about his characters and makes them human. The three stories, of climate, of crime, of family, work out along side each other, though the climate story really hasn’t worked out at all! The dead man is investigative reporter, George Younger, missing for three months after vanishing during what he claimed was a hill-walking holiday. But Younger was no hill walker, and his discovery on a mountain-top near the Highland village of Kinlochleven, is inexplicable. 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 was 2051 and Detective Cameron Brodie was a veteran cop out of Glasgow, when a body was discovered deeply entombed in the ice high above the little village of Kinlochleven. Cameron volunteered to investigate as he knew his estranged daughter Addie was living in Kinlochleven and he wanted to see her before it was too late. Pathologist Dr Sita Roy joined Cameron on their journey, arriving in the middle of a ferocious ice storm. But making their way through the snow and ice, the International Hotel where they were staying, loomed large. 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 following day, with the assistance of the local cop, as well as Cameron, Dr Roy performed the autopsy of Mr Younger. What she found left no room for doubt that he was murdered - and immediately put herself and Cameron in intense danger... 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. Brodie has an ulterior motive for volunteering to take on this case. He has received a death sentence of his own, and has something personal he has to get out of the way before he departs this earth for good. So, in reality, he is a man with nothing to lose, and a will to live. 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.