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

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A dead body encased in ice, multiple murders, and political corruption combine with addiction and a family drama that is irresistible - a one sitting read for me!

I have always looked forward to a new a new thriller by Peter May and out today 19 January is his new standalone novel A Winter Grave (Riverrun) and based in the Scottish Highlands and there is clear climate warnings through this brilliant and very readable thriller. I’m not sure it needed the family backstory (it jumps back in time to tell the story of his wife’s suicide) but it does come together in an exciting climax and satisfying ending. In Scotland the melting ice caps halt the Gulf Stream effect which means it is frequently hit by brutal snow and ice storms.Someone is trying to conceal some extremely crucial information in this Highland village, something that cost George Younger his life. I love the attention to detail in things such as possible advances between 2022/23 and the future and he makes it feel plausible. Throughout it all there is atmosphere in abundance in the Highlands setting with cruel weather to further highlight the hazardous situations. It wasn’t until now, with his own death imminent, that he had been moved, finally, to drag all the skeletons from the closet, and lay them out to be judged. A dying detective travels to a northern outpost to investigate the death of a man found in the snow.

Now Brodie is investigating a mysterious murder but soon he is going to have his hands full with another.Warnings of climate catastrophe have been ignored, and vast areas of the planet are under water, or uninhabitably hot. We now get to meet police detective Cameron Brodie who has been sent to investigate the body on the mountain. The book opens in the near future, not a huge step forward in time but massive changes have occurred. It is a reporter from The Herald who is identified as the body in the ice cave, and Brodie sets off to investigate, with connections from his own dark past adding to his reasons to want to visit Kinlochleven. Interspersed throughout Brodie’s narrative are flashbacks to 2023, when he first met Addie’s mother, gradually revealing what has weighed so heavily on Brodie’s conscience for a decade.