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

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Well, while awaiting the release of The Chess Men, the final book in The Lewis Trilogy – in September in France and next January in the UK, I was keeping my head down and getting to work on a new idea. However, if I thought I was going to have some quiet time to research and think, I was wrong. The last couple of weeks have been – well, see for yourself… Through this countrywide network, a writer who was unknown to American readers, could get on the road and let people know about his work. Peter said: “Thirty years into the future is not really very far. Thirty years ago I would have just started filming the Gaelic drama series Machair and that feels like yesterday to me. But before I tell you about the highlights of the year for me, I have some exciting news about my next book Entry Island. For those of you who don’t know, Entry Island is set in part on the Isle of Lewis and in part on the Magdalen Islands of Quebec. It was scheduled for release in early January 2014, but… ENTRY ISLAND RELEASED EARLY

A physical launch tour for the book was out of the question because of social distancing restrictions, so this year there was a whole new approach… a virtual tour undertaken from that very music studio. Interviews with journalists began in January and carried on into February and March. There is traditionally a launch party for the new book in London with all the top book reviewers having a meal in London with me and my publisher. This year it was replaced by a virtual launch and a hamper of specially chosen food, drink and delights from South West France, was delivered to the homes of the journalists. We then met up and enjoyed the fare together on a video call. 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. I will be writing a new book in 2022 to be on the bookshelves in early 2023. Maybe by then this pandemic will be past, and I can venture out once more to meet my readers. Joe went on to advise me on further books in the China series, as well as in the Enzo Files series, and finally on “ Coffin Road”. Those of you who have read my thriller, “Coffin Road”, will know that some of the action takes place on one of a group of tiny islands twenty miles off the west coast of Lewis and Harris in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland.

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Many clan chiefs were disposessed of their land and a new generation of landowner took over the vast Highland estates they vacated. The crofters, whose ancestors had worked the land for centuries, were seen as a burden. They made no money from the land, which provided subsistence only, and were unable to pay rent. So, with financial incentives from the government, this new breed of landowner systematically began to replace people with sheep, which were regarded as a more economically viable use of the land. I was able to speak to book groups, book shops, and libraries all over the UK. With professional sound and video quality from my studio, I was able to do radio interviews for the BBC and independent radio, and TV for Scottish Television and Sky News. And although it might seem strange to say that I was uplifted, even inspired by this letter, that is exactly how I felt. It was sent to me by an editor called Philip Ziegler, and his words of praise and encouragement are perhaps the only things that sustained me through all the difficult years that lay ahead.

I am not often moved to blog about things I read in the tabloid press, but I was incensed by this ignorant, poorly researched piece of trash “journalism” perpetrated by a pompous columnist called Richard Godwin in a rag called the London Evening Standard. While explaining that the book was neither long enough, nor sufficiently good in construction or style, he went on to write, “But we do like it. It has a direct and emphatic narrative style and has an oddly memorable – even idyllic flavour about it. We feel you ought to go on writing, and would like to see anything you write in future – which may not sound very much, but is, I can assure you, a great deal more than we say to 95% of the people who send in their typescripts!” In a sleepy French village, the body of a man shot through the head is disinterred by the roots of a fallen tree. It was during this time that he spent several years in China, effectively training the top five hundred Chinese police officers in the latest Western policing techniques, and it was this connection that led to my first encounter with him in 1997. But how do you write about a subject so big and I’m a crime writer and readers don’t want to be preached at and I was well aware of all that.I feel privileged to have experienced Beijing and China as it had once been, and to have borne witness to its metamorphosis. The China Thrillers could hardly have been set at a time of greater change. And so I view the books now almost as modern historical documents. They tell us not only about the evolution in the relationship between Deputy Section Chief Li Yan and American pathologist Margaret Campbell, but bear testament to one of the most astonishing cultural transformations in recent history. The “Crime Thriller Club Best Read” award was the last one to be presented and to be honest my mind was focused on the moment when it would all be over and a) I could visit the toilets and b) I could get out of the tie and suit. Cast Iron– the sixth and final book in the Enzo Files series – will be published in hard cover edition in North America on October 3rd. So I despatched the manuscript to a metaphorical drawer – a file in my Dropbox which has spent the last fifteen years gathering dust in the ether. When Sime arrives, it is only to discover that the wife of the victim, and prime suspect in his murder, is unaccountably familiar to him, even although they have never met…

In July, there was another virtual event. The British Crime Writer’s Association awards ceremony for 2021.The Flannan Isles are famous for their real-life hundred-year-old mystery of the three lighthouse keepers who went missing without trace. It’s a story that still captures the imagination, but the main draw for today’s tourist trips to the islands is bird-spotting. And in Coffin Road, on one such outing, the corpse in question is found and DS George Gunn is called in to investigate. My 1981 book, “The Man With No Face”, was set against Britain’s uncertainty about its future place in Europe. Ten years later my book, “The Noble Path”, followed refugees fleeing from war, taking to flimsy boats to cross treacherous bodies of water. Sound familiar? In my scenario Glasgow Airport has been flooded so the international airport is out of use, and that was all great fun and I enjoyed looking at that.” There are seven books in the series, and while there is plenty of mystery, thrill, and high-octane action, the unique thing about this series is the surprisingly good humor. People do not expect funny humor in a crime thriller/murder mystery novel. And it fits perfectly.

Joe was a veritable force of nature, who fought for all things natural. He was a kind, supremely generous man, with a great sense of humour, and an endless patience for this annoying writer.Edinburgh, 16th – 18th August for the Edinburgh Book Festival, for an event at Peppers Theatre 6.45pm 16th August Happy New Year! And I’m happy to announce the publication of The Man With No Face. This book was originally written and published in 1981, it’s a fast-moving political thriller is set in 1979 but is contemporary in its themes, which is why my editor suggested it was time for a new edition.