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

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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. 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.

In 2003 I read Firemaker, the first thriller by Peter May, and although the details are a bit fuzzy, I still remember how impressed I was with this book. And for those here on GR who read Dutch: I reviewed Firemaker, The Killing Room (De moordkamer) and Chinese Whispers (De seriemoordenaar). 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.’ 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.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 . . .

A Winter Grave takes place in a remote village in the Scottish Highlands; one that is in the grip of an ice storm. May has, as always, created the perfect atmospheric setting for his work. 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! 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 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. Inevitably rising sea levels from melting Polar ice caps causes widespread flooding, altering the shape and nature of all our coastlines. But here in Scotland, a body has been found frozen in the ice near Loch Leven, that of one Charles Younger, an investigative journalist with the Scottish Herald who had been reported missing three months earlier, and Detective Inspector Cameron Brodie volunteers to travel there along with the doctor who will do the post mortem, Dr Sita Roy.

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.

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. 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. Q: In your research, was this how the scientists you spoke to saw the Scotland of 2051, with the seas rising due to melting ice caps, etc?

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. 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.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. 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. A good read but I think it was more about me not getting absorbed by the novel than it not been a good book. I have always enjoyed this authors writing and even though I wasn’t fully convinced by this novel I still enjoyed it. 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... 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.