At the end of it, I thought I have got to write about this, and the problem was how. I don’t want to preach to people so I decided so I would write a conventional thriller and set it 30 years in the future and the world would just be changed by the climate crisis.” Time hop He chose to write about it in the context of a thriller and that’s the same approach he has taken with A Winter Grave.

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.’ He was really in with the Chinese police,” says Peter. “It was like getting an introduction to the mafia from a made man! When I first went I was met at the airport by the police, which was a bit alarming. They just whisked me off to my hotel and then took me to the police university.” Climate change Effectively I had retired,” he says. “I had turned down future contracts from my publisher. I had been doing a book or two books a year for 20 years or more and travelling, all over Europe and all over North America. It’s the year 2051, and the subject of climate change has been ignored for so long, and now it’s too late, with catastrophic changes taking place across the world. Huge areas of the world are under water, whilst others are too hot to be habitable. 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.I do a very detailed synopsis, I do the drafting side of it when I am working on the synopsis,” he says. “Then when I’m finished it, I’m finished it – I don’t want to see it again, it’s on the spike!” 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. Don’t Burn the World was written by Peter and Irish lyricist and poet Dennis McCoy. It is intended to be an anthem for the youth of the world and a plea for action in the face of the climate crisis. It is performed by the Peter May Band and was recorded at his home studio in France. A Winter Grave is not an easy read; the near future is quite bleak so to say, in more than one meaning. It is, however, a great dystopian thriller which will set you thinking. When the body of investigative journalist George Younger is discovered entombed in an ice tunnel in the Mamore Forest, veteran Glasgow detective Cameron Brodie volunteers to investigate. However, the investigation is just an ostensible reason; primarily he wishes to reconcile with the woman who discovered the body, his estranged daughter, Addie. The two haven’t spoken for over ten years, since the death of Brodie’s wife, Mel.

While Peter hasn’t quite managed to make good his escape from his writing career, he is excited that he has been able to find the time to release a song about the climate crisis to coincide with the publication of A Winter Grave’s.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. 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. In the autumn of 2021, Peter watched and read about the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow with a growing sense of concern. Just three months earlier, the United Nations Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had published their scariest prediction yet: that on current carbon emissions we were set to reach a 1.5º Celsius increase in global temperatures within the next two decades, leading to catastrophic environmental disaster. 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). I write 3,000 words a day when I am working on a book and I’m usually finished a book in about seven weeks.” The joy of research

This is set in a futuristic Scotland in a world that has been ravaged by climate changes. We’re only a handful of decades ahead and the landscape and environmental narrative is all very plausible which makes it even the more chilling a possibility, pun intended. Keen to bring this to people’s attention, and wanting to put it in a readable format, Peter decided to use his skills as a journalist to embark on some in-depth research of his own and then use some of what he found within a crime thriller. He decided to set the story almost thirty years from now, in a world transformed by a changing climate.

Dismayed

The first death is confirmed as suspicious. Another murder follows. Brodie is cut off from help in a village where an unidentified killer is hiding. He would be their obvious next victim… Questions and Answers Inevitably rising sea levels from melting Polar ice caps causes widespread flooding, altering the shape and nature of all our coastlines. This is a compelling blend of an environmental/political thriller with a puzzling mystery. There’s humour although this rightly diminishes as danger levels rise, there’s plenty of tension, excitement accompanied by a building menace and peril. There are some good plot twists that keep you hooked, the pace is fast and there are some Hollywood action movie worthy scenes which give a dystopian feel. Throughout it all there is atmosphere in abundance in the Highlands setting with cruel weather to further highlight the hazardous situations.

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.

Questions and Answers

The man had no interest in hillwalking. But he was found in a frozen grave in a difficult-to-reach spot above Kinlochleven. Murder in the mountains Unusually for the painstaking researcher, Covid travel restrictions meant Peter wasn’t able to get to Scotland. I mean, literacy is one of the pillars of civilisation and to damage the opportunity that young people have to read is seriously undermining our society.” No clear path to authorhood She shivered, in spite of standing in front of the flames. 'I don't like this place,' she said. 'I've spent half my life with corpses. But the thought of that dead man folded into the cake cabinet in the kitchen gives me the willies.'