A Winter Grave by Peter May

Today I pass the blog over to Mandie who has a review of A Winter Grave by Peter May. Thanks to Sophie Ransom and to publisher riverrun Books for the advance copy. Here’s what the book is all about:

About the Book

A TOMB OF ICE

A young meteorologist checking a mountain top weather station in Kinlochleven discovers the body of a missing man entombed in ice.

A DYING DETECTIVE

Cameron Brodie, a Glasgow detective, sets out on a hazardous journey to the isolated and ice-bound village. He has his own reasons for wanting to investigate a murder case so far from his beat.

AN AGONIZING RECKONING

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.

Set against a backdrop of a frighteningly plausible near-future, A WINTER GRAVE is Peter May at his page-turning, passionate and provocative best.

Mandie’s Thoughts

Having loved the Enzo MacLeod series I was thrilled to get my hands on a copy of the latest book by Peter May. Set in 2051 and billed as a cli-fi thriller it was going to be different from my usual reads but sometimes that is not a bad thing. Giving us a glimpse of the possibilities of what may happen to huge parts of the world it provides the perfect backdrop to the events that take place.

When meteorologist Addie goes to check on one of the local weather stations she finds more than she bargains for in the form of the body of missing journalist George Younger frozen in the ice and snow. Glasgow detective Cameron Brodie is reluctant to be the one that leads the investigation until he is confronted with his own mortality, and he finds out just who discovered the body. As he travels to Kinlochleven he confronts his past and tries to discover just what happened in this isolated area.

As always Peter May has provided his readers with well developed characters that you can relate to from Cameron Brodie to Addie and her husband, local police officer constable Robert Sinclair. Brodie has a lot on his plate with the investigation and the events that happen once he arrives at Kinlochleven. He is distracted at times by Addie and her animosity towards him but throughout the book you get to understand the reasons why and the lengths he had gone to protect her even if it meant destroying their relationship with the flashbacks giving the added backstory

There are so many twists and turns in this book that you are never quite sure of the who or the why although the latter becomes more evident earlier on in the book. Like Brodie you are never sure who can be trusted and the answers to that question may surprise you.

This book certainly gives you something to think about, whether it be the possibilities facing us in the future due to climate change or the investigation being taken on by Cameron Brodie. The climate change element was never totally in your face, but it does make you wonder what is in store in the future if things don’t change and I have to admit that I am not sure I would ever want to be transported in a flying vehicle that is unmanned (even if they are trying to get unmanned cars out in the world already). It felt strange seeing the flashbacks to when Cameron met his ex-wife as they were set in 2023, a year that is only just starting now but was still a month away when I actually read this book. If you like Peter May and maybe want to read something a little different then this is a book you should read.

About the Author

Peter May was born and raised in Scotland. He was an award-winning journalist at the age of twenty-one and a published novelist at twenty-six. When his first book was adapted as a major drama series for the BBC, he quit journalism and during the high-octane fifteen years that followed, became one of Scotland’s most successful television dramatists. He created three prime-time drama series, presided over two of the highest-rated serials in his homeland as script editor and producer, and worked on more than 1,000 episodes of ratings-topping drama before deciding to leave television to return to his first love, writing novels.

In 2021, he was awarded the CWA Dagger in the Library Award. 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. Peter now lives in South-West France with his wife, writer Janice Hally.

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