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

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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. Peter lives in South-West France with his wife, writer Janice Hally, and in 2016 both became French by naturalisation. (Peter May) Unusually for the painstaking researcher, Covid travel restrictions meant Peter wasn’t able to get to Scotland. The outcome of COP26 left him dismayed. “I thought ‘these people all know what the situation is, but there are more fossil fuel lobbyists at these COP conferences than there are representatives from the developing world’. The fossil fuel industry has spent decades spreading disinformation and scepticism. Peter is determined to do his bit to halt the climate crisis, and says modestly: “I thought well, I have got perhaps a little louder voice than some people. The only thing I can do is make that noise heard above the roar of denial.”

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. In A Winter Grave, the reader meets protagonist Cameron Brodie at two stages in his life: his early career, set in 2023, and a murder investigation in 2051, where he travels to a snow and ice-covered Kinlochleven to face the ghosts of his past. 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. 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.

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.

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. 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. 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.” Peter also looked into the possible transport of the future driven by electricity and green hydrogen produced by renewable energies, for example an eVTOL plane, plus icom mobiles. He used a specifically commissioned drone to explore the area high up above the loch he uses within A Winter Grave and used the footage from that within his story.

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. The chorus is sung by a children’s choir from the Isle of Lewis, adding resonance to the song’s message of protecting the planet for future generations. 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.