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

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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.'

Brodie must face up to the ghosts of his past and to a killer determined to bury forever the chilling secret that his investigation threatens to expose.Glasgow detective Cameron Brodie volunteers to fly out to investigate Younger’s death, but his ulterior motive is something else all together. He’s been given the devastating news that he has only months to live, but he needs to meet up with Addie, the meteorologist first, he has something really important to tell her before it’s too late - because Addie is his estranged daughter. 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.

Peter lives in South-West France with his wife, writer Janice Hally, and in 2016 both became French by naturalisation. (Peter May) 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. What follows is a story that take place in both 2051 and 2023 the changes in times were sometime jarring but once I got use to it I settled into the story. There were plenty of twists and turns and I was no where near guessing the ending. 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.’ 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 . . .

Murder in the mountains

this novel the author explores new territory. The story is set in 2051 when the world has been experiencing the effects of climate change. May brilliantly weaves the investigation into how things have changed in the world & gives us a future that is chillingly believable. 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.

The story mainly takes place in 2051, when global warming has devasted our planet. Much of the earth is underwater, with coastal regions wiped out. Elsewhere, central inland areas have become too hot to be habitable. Millions of people are on the move as refugees, trying to escape famine and flooding. Immigration is causing war and political turmoil. Melting ice has stopped the warming effect of the Gulf Stream, resulting in northern Europe, including Scotland, being hit by raging blizzards and ice storms. 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.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! I have my signed copy of a Winter’s Grave but haven’t touched it yet as I have been busy re-reading all seven Enzo novels and am now on Entry Island. Your crafting of language and building of the story and the characters is second to none. His daughter, Addie, is a meteorologist in the remote Scottish Highlands. She has installed weather stations; her task is to take weather readings and report any changes. She discovers the body of a man encased in ice and suspended in an ice cave. He is identified as George Younger, an investigative reporter who went missing three months earlier. He said he was going hiking on a hill-walking holiday. He was never known to be a hiker or outdoorsman. 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.