A Winter Grave by Peter May Blog Tour

 I love it when I find a new to me author that really manages to thrill and excite.

And that's exactly what author Peter May did with his latest (soon to be bestseller) A Winter Grave. A crime thriller that is coming under a new sort of genre, cli-fi.

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.

By contrast, melting ice sheets have brought the Gulf Stream to a halt and northern latitudes, including Scotland, are being hit by snow and ice storms. It is against this backdrop that Addie, a young meteorologist checking a mountain top weather station, discovers the body of a man entombed in ice.

The dead man is investigative reporter, George Younger, missing for three months after vanishing during what he claimed was a hill-walking holiday. But Younger was no hill walker, and his discovery on a mountain-top near the Highland village of Kinlochleven, is inexplicable.

Cameron Brodie, a veteran Glasgow detective, volunteers to be flown north to investigate Younger's death, but he has more than a murder enquiry on his agenda. He has just been given a devastating medical prognosis by his doctor and knows the time has come to face his estranged daughter who has made her home in the remote Highland village.

Arriving during an ice storm, Brodie and pathologist Dr. Sita Roy, find themselves the sole guests at the inappropriately named International Hotel, where Younger's body has been kept refrigerated in a cake cabinet. But evidence uncovered during his autopsy places the lives of both Brodie and Roy in extreme jeopardy.

As another storm closes off communications and the possibility of escape, Brodie must face up not only to the ghosts of his past, but to a killer determined to bury forever the chilling secret that George Younger's investigations had threatened to expose.

Set in the future - the year 2051 - in the beautiful surroundings of the Scottish highlands, this story starts off strong with the discovery of a dead body, literally frozen in time or I guess I should say ice.

The unfortunate victim is a man, investigative reporter George Younger, who had officially been missing for around three months. Not an expert mountain navigator, just what had he been doing? Simply a new hobby gone wrong or something more sinister?

Detective Inspector Cameron Brodie is set the task of finding out whether this was an accident or a murder and when it becomes apparent that it is the later, events seem to go from bad to worse.

In the hereafter of the world as we know it giant parts of the planet are now left under water with some countries having entirely disappeared. In Scotland the melting ice caps halt the Gulf Stream effect which means it is regularly subjected to brutal snow and ice storms. This in turn frequently cuts of power supplies making Brodie's investigation that much harder.

Flashes of the past (although that past is still in our future) provide much needed details, making each character that much more believable, I felt invested in what happened to each of them.

As the number of victims begin to increase, the drive to discover the perpetrator also ramps up.

Danger lurks and there was a dark, ominous atmosphere with every new chapter, both from events of the past and present.

May does a fantastic job of building the suspense. 

Brodie's narrative always leaving me with more questions than answers. I especially enjoyed how he incorporated personal life in with the ongoing inquiries. It just seemed to bring an extra edge to it all. I was literally waiting with bated breath to see what would be revealed next.

A Winter Grave is filled with thrilling twists and intriguing technology. It came across as well researched and highly plausible.

It is a stand-alone novel with a satisfying conclusion and  it definitely won't be the last one of Peter's novels that I read.