Big thank you to the publisher for the gifted ebook. Unfortunately it didn't hit the mark for me. I'm not a big fan of dystopian novels and I missed it being mentioned in the description. I'm so sorry I didn't enjoy it but I don't think I'm the right target reader for this book

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...

A Winter Grave is the latest standalone thriller by prolific author Peter May, and it was intense, gritty, fast-paced and chilling (in both senses of the word!) Set almost 30 years into the future with a futuristic, automated "helicopter" controlled by the robotic "Eve", and with many other technological devices, plus the devastating effects of climate change, I found Cameron to be a great character. He and his best friend Tiny had been friends since they were young and couldn't be closer, always having each other's backs. I thoroughly enjoyed A Winter Grave and recommend it highly.

With thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my digital ARC to read in exchange for an honest review.

Loved this one. A police procedural thriller set in the near future under the backdrop of climate change. Set in an independent Scotland in the year 2051 and while many things seem the same technology has moved on but not so much that life seems much different. The author has taken great care to make things seem familiar whilst also highlighting the changes. Rising sea levels have caused the loss of much of the coastal towns and villages and cities built around our rivers have lost much of their centres. All very much believable when you're reading it amidst hammering rain and localised flooding! Characters are well presented and the storyline was quite gripping. A bit of a change from the type of story I've read previously by this author and certainly not any worse for the change. Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the advance review copy.

Set in the near future, climate change has wreaked havoc on the planet and Scotland has achieved independence. A police detective volunteers to travel to the highlands to investigate the death of a journalist found buried in ice whilst reuniting with his estranged daughter. This was a thoughtful, exciting read and though it might be considered dystopian, many of the elements Peter May writes about are coming true now. Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for the arc.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read this book.
I have been a fan of Peter May but as soon as I opened this and it commences in 2051 I completely abandoned it, sorry. I am not a fan of stories set in the future.

Having loved the Enzo MacLeod series I was thrilled to get my hands on a copy of the latest book by Peter May. Set in 2051 and billed as a cli-fi thriller it was going to be different from my usual reads but sometimes that is not a bad thing. Giving us a glimpse of the possibilities of what may happen to huge parts of the world it provides the perfect backdrop to the events that take place.
When meteorologist Addie goes to check on one of the local weather stations she finds more than she bargains for in the form of the body of missing journalist George Younger frozen in the ice and snow. Glasgow detective Cameron Brodie is reluctant to be the one that leads the investigation until he is confronted with his own mortality, and he finds out just who discovered the body. As he travels to Kinlochleven he confronts his past and tries to discover just what happened in this isolated area.
As always Peter May has provided his readers with well developed characters that you can relate to from Cameron Brodie to Addie and her husband, local police officer constable Robert Sinclair. Brodie has a lot on his plate with the investigation and the events that happen once he arrives at Kinlochleven. He is distracted at times by Addie and her animosity towards him but throughout the book you get to understand the reasons why and the lengths he had gone to protect her even if it meant destroying their relationship with the flashbacks giving the added backstory
There are so many twists and turns in this book that you are never quite sure of the who or the why although the latter becomes more evident earlier on in the book. Like Brodie you are never sure who can be trusted and the answers to that question may surprise you.
This book certainly gives you something to think about, whether it be the possibilities facing us in the future due to climate change or the investigation being taken on by Cameron Brodie. The climate change element was never totally in your face, but it does make you wonder what is in store in the future if things don’t change and I have to admit that I am not sure I would ever want to be transported in a flying vehicle that is unmanned (even if they are trying to get unmanned cars out in the world already). It felt strange seeing the flashbacks to when Cameron met his ex-wife as they were set in 2023, a year that is only just starting now but was still a month away when I actually read this book. If you like Peter May and maybe want to read something a little different then this is a book you should read.

2051, after a catastrophic climate change huge swathes of the planet are under water and Scotland is a changed place. Old-school detective Cameron Brodie tries to keep up but knows his time is limited. On the day that he learns he has terminal cancer he is also asked to look into the death of a journalist found encased in ice. It gives him the opportunity to re-connect with his estranged daughter but the powers behind the killing are determined to stop the investigation.

There is much to like about this book. At its heart it is a standard police procedural and a good one at that. The plot is complicated but satisfying, the back-story of Brodie and the reason why his daughter is estranged is sad and well told. However I found the whole futuristic setting somewhat jarring. For great sections of the book it was irrelevant and then just intruded with a bit of technology which seemed pointless except for the section just before the end.

A Winter Grave is the ninth stand-alone novel by award-winning Scottish journalist, screenwriter and author, Peter May. In November 2051, a young meteorologist is checking her weather station in the western Scottish Highlands when she comes across a body in a patch of ice in a corrie. Three months earlier, award-winning Scottish Herald investigative journalist, Charles Younger, the bane of corrupt politicians, went missing near Loch Leven.

Glasgow Police DI Cameron Brodie, fresh from failing to get murder conviction due to technical complications, rejects his DCI’s request to accompany the pathologist to perform a post mortem on Younger, and, noting his expertise in hill walking, examine the scene. But then he receives a diagnosis adverse enough to change his mind.

After a slightly rocky introduction, Brodie finds that he gets on quite well with police pathologist Dr Sita Roy, and both are relieved when their eVTOL (electric helicopter) sets them down safely during an ice storm, in the blacked-out village of Kinlochleven.

The following morning, despite an ongoing power failure, Sita conducts her PM and concludes that Younger was murdered, noting some anomalies about his body in her findings. The blackout prevents instant analysis of the likely killer’s DNA, as well as stopping their eVTOL being recharged, effectively grounding them.

Meanwhile, Brodie has kept to himself the fact that the woman who found the body, the wife of the local bobby, is his estranged daughter. Addie Sinclair is not best pleased to see her father, and vocal about it. But they are forced together to climb the mountain and check what is now a murder scene. But why, they both wonder, was a journalist with no hill-walking experience take the difficult trail up to a high peak?

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.

With comms and the internet still down, and the Ice storm having cut off the village, Brodie continues to investigate this puzzling murder. But certain incidents add an atmosphere of menace, and then there’s another murder, which won’t be the last before Brodie departs the Kinlochleven.

May sets his story in a near future where an independent Scotland has rejoined the EU, and climate change has significantly raised sea levels, causing widespread flooding and a huge increase in climate refugees, which exacerbates racism, and a plague of resistant German cockroaches: he paints a realistic if rather frightening picture of how the world could look if climate change is allowed to progress at the current rate.

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. May includes some interesting tech, and his characters have depth and appeal. A well-crafted plot, with action and intrigue, twists and red herrings, and a nail-biting climax, make this is another Peter May winner. Unputdownable.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Quercus

One of the best books from this author. A stand alone mystery set in the future and almost present day immensely readable. Introducing new people. Highly recommended.

3.5 stars. Set in a very different 2051 where Global Warming is causing havoc around the world. We meet Cameron Brodie a police detective who is dealing with demons of his own.
The body of a missing reporter is found in a mountain top Scottish village. For reasons of his own Brodie volunteers to take the case.
What follows is a story that take place in both 2051 and 2023 the changes in times were sometime jarring but once I got use to it I settled into the story. There were plenty of twists and turns and I was no where near guessing the ending.
What May does with out being preachy, is to get you to focus on the possible outcomes of global warming. Let me be clear this is a mystery novel with a unique setting - our possible future.
Thanks to Netgalley. the publisher and the author for the opportunity to read this novel.

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 neighbouring countries.

Interesting setting for a crime scene. I enjoy dystopian fiction and Peter May - so this one worked for me.

Thanks to Netgallery for the ARC

At first I wasn’t too sure about reading a book set in the future, but suddenly 2051 isn’t all that far away. The author makes the changes believable and the things that stay the same comforting. The storyline is gripping as Brodie is sent to Northern Scotland to investigate a murder which brings about both reward and sacrifice. Plenty of characters to sink your teeth into and great movement throughout the book to enrich the story. I enjoyed this chilling tale, thanks to Netgalley for the advance reader copy.

This dystopian crime novel kept me reading long into the night with its enthralling plot and compelling glimpse into the future world of climate change.. The story is set in 2051 with flashbacks to 2023. By 2051, the failure of the superpowers to curb their energy consumption has led to many countries becoming so hot that they are uninhabitable and many low-lying countries are under water. But, bizarrely, in Scotland, the disappearance of the warming Gulf Stream has created Arctic winters. Police officer, Cameron Brodie is asked to investigate a suspicious death up in the mountains and soon becomes embroiled in a deadly conspiracy to hide the truth. Brodie has very personal reasons for wanting to travel to The Highlands, and this is gradually revealed on his arrival. As ever, Peter May's ability to describe a place so that the reader can almost feel they are there is phenomenal. I read the book in a warm room, feeling as though there was snow and ice all around me. This descriptive flare is combined with a highly plausible idea of how technology may have evolved to aid the solving of crime in the middle of the 21st century. May manages to place this technology at the centre of the story very convincingly and it is obvious that he has thoroughly researched his subject. I have been careful not to add to many details to this review as the tiny twists and turns in the plot are so skillfully done that it would be a pity to spoil them. This is certainly a book I will recommend to my friends.

This book is set on a dual timeline, current day and 2051. DI Cameron Brodie investigates the discovery of a body encased in ice, discovered on a mountainside in the Highlands. The future Scotland has been the victim of climate change, and this lies at the heart of this gripping thriller.
I thoroughly enjoyed the storyline of secrets linked to a nuclear power station, Ballachulish A, together with Brodie's personal story. Knowing this area of Scotland well added to the enjoyment - if enjoyment is the right word as it paints a bleak picture of the near future! I loved the new technology referred to as it was more believable than the space age things that are usually written about.
I couldn't put this one down!

I would like to thank Netgalley and Quercus Books for an advance copy of A Winter Grave, a stand-alone thriller set in Scotland in 2051.

DI Cameron Brodie is sent from Glasgow to the Scottish village of Kinlochleven to investigate the death of a journalist found frozen in the ice by a local meteorologist. What he finds there is more trouble than a dying man needs.

I thoroughly enjoyed A Winter Grove, which is a compulsive read on more than one level. Firstly it is set in the near future and paints a very bleak picture of what climate change wreaks, secondly it is a murder investigation with a conspiratorial bent and thirdly it is a story of a dying man coming to terms with his troubled past. I also liked the familiarity of the Glasgow setting and could picture the areas described.

I will be honest and say that I would have rated this novel at 5* if it hadn’t painted such a bleak picture of the future. I can’t say if the author will be accused of climate change propaganda and hysteria, but most of it seems like reasonable extrapolation to me and it’s not pleasant. It broke my heart to see my home town of Glasgow under water for the most part and mass migration inciting even more racism, to cite a couple of examples.

The narrative switches between 2051 and 2023 when Cammie reminisces about his past and tries to set some misconceptions straight. Again, it is a sad story and I will confess to not understanding some of the character’s’ motivations and actions, but there is redemption and a strange sense of uplift by the end of it. What happens to him has a dark Scottish humour to it.

The investigation held me riveted. I don’t know what I expected, but what I got surprised me. There are plenty of twists and turns and really unexpected events, culminating in an action packed finale with surprising motivations and outcomes. As I said it is a bit conspiratorial, but somehow it fits into the world the author has imagined.

A Winter Grave is a good read that I have no hesitation in recommending..

This is mostly a fast-paced thriller with some fairly gruesome scenes, set in the 2050s with a backstory earlier in the century. The narrative includes (what I assume are) the author’s rather obvious contemporary political opinions, and a lot of superfluous detail about the negative effects of climate change which, for me, spoiled the flow of the plot. Although I had spotted the villain soon after their first appearance, overall I enjoyed getting to the denouement.

Set in 2051, detective inspector Cameron Brodie investigates the discovery of a body encased in ice discovered on a mountainside.
The Scotland of the future has been the victim of climate change, and this lies at the heart of this gripping thriller.
It also means a fair amount of explanation and back-story which can slow down the story a little but is also necessary to the plot.
There’s also a family connection, and - without wishing to give too much away - some life-changing events for Brodie himself.
I’m not a big reader of this detective series by Peter May but this novel stands alone and I found it gripping and interesting - for example, in the futuristic tech being used.
Recommended: a pacy thriller with plenty of twists to keep you guessing.

Another cracking book by Peter May!!!
A standalone novel set in 2051 where climate change has ruined the world. Vast areas of the world under water and Scotland is a home to refugees from all over the world.

What a spectacular read this was from Peter May! Set in 2051 in Scotland, with climate change bringing disastrous floods caused by melting ice, Detective Cameron Brodie sets out to investigate the body of a journalist, frozen in ice, found on a mountain top. I loved the descriptions of the landscape and the believable characterisation and I was quickly drawn in to the story which kept me enthralled to the end. The insight into the technology and mode of transport was quite scary but I could imagine it working well. Overall, it's an engrossing read from a brilliant author. Thanks to Net Galley for my ARC.

I am relatively new to this author but, the more I read, the more I want the time to pounce on all his back catalogue and devour all he has written. There is something about the way he writes as well as the content that just gels with me.
Set in the near future, 2051, where the climate change we talk about today has happened with a vengeance. Huge swathes of the planet are under water or too hot to be populated. People have been displaced and immigration is a nightmare. The ice caps are melting and Scotland, where our book is set, is being hit by snow and ice storms. And it is here where young meteorologist Addie discovers the body of a man, frozen within the ice. The death is called in, the body identified as an investigative reporter who had gone missing a few months previously on a walking holiday. But that doesn't fit with where he was found and a suspicious death (at least) is called.
And this is where Cameron Brodie comes in. He volunteers for the job and, along with a pathologist, travels to the wilds of Scotland to start their investigations... He has an ulterior motive for wanting the job, as we soon find out... It's also not long before things start to get weird, strange, and very very dangerous...
One of the things I really loved about this book was the setting. It is so claustrophobic and dark. Creepy and chilling. It really lends itself well to the story being told. Which is also all these things in itself. With the storm bringing communication to a stop, they really are on their own. And, it also soon transpires, on their own with a killer!
As well as a cracking whodunnit and why, we also have a cracking cast of very well drawn characters. And some wicked dynamics between them. There is a certain amount of personal stuff too, as you will find out, but they really sell the main story being told.
It contains everything you'd expect, and want, from a book of this genre. There are twists and turns aplenty as the plot races on, building up the tension throughout until finally, the whole shocking truth is laid bare. Leaving me wholly satisfied.
Note to self, bump up this author on your tbr quick smart...
My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.