I've read about 10 books by Peter May but this is in a different class from the Lewis Trilogy and the Enzo Files. First of all, It is pretty much guaranteed to be a stand alone. Secondly, May transports us more than twenty-five years into the future and it's certainly not a pretty picture. Nevertheless, I found it quite compelling.

Climate change has wrought its effects everywhere across the earth but for the purposes of this book set in Scotland it is the halting of the Gulf Stream (caused by the extreme melting of ice sheets) that is felt the most. Without the ameliorating effect of the Gulf Stream Scotland is much colder and is subject to extreme snow and ice storms. Addie, a meteorologist tasked with maintaining an array of instruments on Scottish mountains, discovers a man entombed in an ice cave while on her duties. The corpse is that of journalist George Younger who disappeared about 3 months previously. Veteran police detective Cameron Brodie from Glasgow is asked to investigate the death. At first he refuses but then he is given bad news by his doctor and he decides to go. He and pathologist Sita Roy are flown by a drone helicopter north to Kinlochleven area. They almost didn't make it as a fierce ice storm hits the area before they land but the helicopter manages to make it down safely. Then they have to make their way to the nearby hotel on foot in a near whiteout. And that's just the start of their travails. It seems that whoever was responsible for the journalist's death is equally determined they won't get back to headquarters with any evidence. While trying to remain alive and solve the murder Brodie is also determined to patch up things with his daughter. Yes, his daughter lives in this remote area and she is Addie, the person who discovered the body. She is also married to the local cop. Brodie hasn't seen her since his wife's funeral. His wife committed suicide and Addie interpreted her suicide note to mean that Brodie had been having an affair. That wasn't the case and now he wants to clear up the circumstances surrounding his wife's death. So, Brodie has his work cut out for him and for a man facing his own mortality he finds he has more reasons for living than he has had in a long time.

The picture painted by May of the effects of climate change on Scotland and particularly Glasgow is depressing. Much of the city has been submerged by the rising ocean and it seems like it is always raining. Nevertheless, Glasgow is called home by numerous climate refugees whose own countries and cities are absolutely uninhabitable. I wish I thought that May was scare-mongering but I don't think he is. The inhabitants of earth have to take dramatic action or this will be our reality. ( )

Set in November 2051, this novel is not only a murder mystery, but portrays a future affected by global warming after the major powers have failed to meet targets back at the beginning of the century. The world has changed drastically with countries near the equator becoming too hot to live in, sea levels having risen, and the northern hemisphere has entered a new Ice Age.

The body of an investigative reporter has been found entombed in ice near a nuclear power station which supplies all the power for Scotland. It is just days out from a national election in which it is expected that the ruling party will be returned.

A Glasgow detective, Cameron Brodie, has recently received the worst news from his medical specialist, and decides to undertake this investigation which may very well be his last hurrah. He also has some unfinished business which he hopes the journey north will enable him to complete.

This novel has a nicely balanced story, set against this futuristic scenario, where unmanned drones fly people to destinations.

I thoroughly enjoyed it. ( )

A discovery in frozen Scotland changes everything.

Author Peter May has a knack for taking society’s current situations and extrapolating them to the future. In 2005, May could not find a publisher for his book “Lockdown,” set in the midst of a devastating global pandemic, but it became a best seller in 2020 as readers struggled with that very issue. Now, in “A Winter Grave,” he gives readers a glimpse into life in 2053 – the good and the bad, the different and the same.

“A Winter Grave” opens with a prologue, an inciting incident that sets everything into motion. It is a winter day; the air is a crystal-clear blue; the sun spreads golden rays on the land below, and a woman is checking a weather sensors station. Then, in the frozen landscape, she finds something that changes her life forever.

Camron Brody is a Glasgow Detective. May paints a clear, poetic, and tragic picture of the wreck of a man he has become, but several things in his life are also about to change. Readers follow him as he conducts the investigation in the present and also delve deeply into his past, learning how he got to his troubled present. However, his “present” is 2051, and his “past” is 2023.

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.

May tells a superbly well-crafted story. The narrative expertly transitions back and forth in time. The plot is compelling and complex; the characters are complicated and authentic; the emotions are intricate and raw. It is uncanny and compelling in every way.

“A Winter Grave” by Peter May is now available in print, as an e-book, and on audio from independent bookstores, online booksellers, retail stores, public libraries, and anywhere you get your books.
#BookReview #PeterMay #AWinterGrave #GlasgowDetective ( )

What can you expect from a Peter May novel? A rugged Scottish landscape, a dour detective with a troubled past, a plot that uses tangled family relationships to drive a pacey mystery, and epically bad weather. A WINTER GRAVE ticks all the boxes, and adds one that is unexpected: The story takes place in 2051, after the climate catastrophe, ignored for too long, has altered the landscape, inundating large parts of now-independent Scotland where water taxis ply the streets of Edinburgh and Glasgow and it never seems to stop raining.

Detective Cameron Brodie is in a very dark mood. Not only has he been humiliated on the stand, when a sophisticated deepfake video contradicted CCTV footage critical to a case, he's just been told by his doctor that he has advanced cancer. He has only six months to live. When a case comes up that requires a trip to a remote western village, he decides to volunteer. As an avid hillclimber he has scaled most of Scotland's mountains, including the one where a missing investigative journalist's body has been discovered. More importantly, taking this assignment will give him a chance to try, once more, to reconcile with his daughter, a climate activist who discovered the reporter's frozen body in an ice cave when visiting a mountaintop weather station. She has long blamed Brodie for her mother's suicide, and he has things he wants to tell her before he dies.

Brodie needs to find out why the journalist was nosing around the massive nuclear plant located near the village and how he ended up frozen in the ice on a nearby mountain. Soon strange events add to the mystery: the recovered body vanishes from the hotel cooler where it's been stored, and that's just the start, requiring every ounce of Brodie's strength. His physical endurance is, at times, a bit superhuman, but his adventures give readers a bracing perspective as the tension ratchets up. More bodies will fall before the case is solved, and Brodie himself will confront death on a tighter schedule than his six-month prognosis.

This fast-paced mystery starts out dark and gloomy, but picks up energy as Brodie heads west, through wild weather, to the kind of setting that May has made his signature. The rugged and challenging landscape is used to good effect, balancing futuristic elements with the enduring power of the natural world. Those familiar with the streets of Glasgow and Edinburgh will likely find the fast-forward fascinating (and disturbing) as May overlays a familiar map with sea-rise predictions, but apart from occasional explanations of how the world has changed, this is no dystopian tract; it's rather a conventional thriller embedded in an unusual and thought-provoking setting.

Reposted from Reviewing the Evidence

Cameron Brodie is a Glasgow DI assigned to investigate the death of a man found in a frozen ice floe near the small village of Kinlochleven. He has his own issues, but he takes advantage of the situation because he needs to see someone in the village.
The first thing to note is that this book takes place in 2051. I don't think I've ever read a thriller/murder mystery that takes place in the future, but Mr. May does a tremendous job in incorporating futuristic items without making the book too Sci-Fi. Climate change has affected the world: the equator is too hot, so millions are moving north, the Gulf Stream has changed, which is making Scotland into a wintry wonderland, and oceans have risen, wiping out land masses along shores. His descriptions of the changes along the River Clyde in Glasgow and then in Loch Leven impressed me as I'm familiar with both areas and could visualize the impact of the changing weather.
The story is also good, which one would expect of the author of the Lewis trilogy. I don't want to spoil it because there are a lot of twists and turns, but it's a book that kept me reading to find out what happens next. As you'd expect with a book on the subject of climate change, there are political ramifications also. While I wouldn't say I liked it as much as some of his other books, it's a quick read and still very good. ( )