Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* May follows up the resounding success of his internationally best-selling Lewis trilogy with a stand-alone ecothriller that is also set in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland, this time on the Isle of Harris, to the south of Lewis. The isles are part of the same large island and share the same buffeting winds and crashing waves, craggy coastlines, and lonely, sometimes perilous stretches of land that made the Lewis novels so achingly atmospheric you couldn't ask for a more perfect setting for mysteries. This latest is enhanced by having three stories that interconnect with the intricacy of illuminated manuscript borders. The first character (who narrates his own story) doesn't know who he is. He's washed ashore on Harris, utterly amnesiac. He's drawn to a lighthouse on another island where three lighthouse keepers were slain a century ago and to the Coffin Road on Harris, the route pallbearers used to take. He fears that he may have killed a man, and knows that someone is trying to kill him. The second character is Detective Sergeant George Gunn from the mainland, sent to investigate a grisly murder in a lighthouse on a rock to the west of Harris. The third is a teenage girl in Edinburgh, convinced that her scientist father, whose death was ruled a suicide, was actually murdered to stop his research. Incredibly, May keeps the stories clear and the pace fast, with the Hebrides' atmosphere serving as a wild, unpredictable fourth character. Flat-out fantastic.--Fletcher, Connie Copyright 2016 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Neal Maclean, the amnesiac hero of this intriguing but overblown standalone from May (Runaway), washes up on one of Scotland's Outer Hebrides, where, unbeknownst to him, he's been living. Neal later figures out that he's supposedly an author who's writing a book about a gale in 1900 that claimed the lives of three lighthouse keepers on the island of Eilean Mòr. When he travels to Eilean Mòr, he finds a dead man, whom Neal fears he may have murdered. Det. Sgt. George Gunn investigates the crime. A hidden trove of bee hives along ancient Coffin Road near Neal's home, coupled with an elaborate laboratory setup in a locked garden shed, seems to indicate something more sinister than simply a historical delving into missing men from over a century ago. The action shifts between Neal and surly 17-year-old Karen Fleming, whose scientist father committed suicide two years earlier. As usual, May evokes his native Scotland as ruggedly dangerous, his well-drawn characters equally so, but the global conspiracy that's behind everything is farfetched at best. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
May returns to the Outer Hebrides of Scotland in this chilling ecothriller. When a man is washed up on a barren beach, he is hypothermic and confused, with no memory of who he is. He begins to uncover clues to his identity, but his amnesia retains a stubborn hold. In Edinburgh, a rebellious teenage girl struggles to understand her scientist father's suicide and sets off a series of events she could never have imagined. DS Sergeant George Gunn from May's "Lewis Trilogy" (The Blackhouse; The Lewis Man; The Chess Men) returns to investigate a murder on the nearby Flannan Isles where the evidence is scanty and confusing. Why do so many people have bee stings? Three perilous journeys lead to a harrowing conclusion. -VERDICT This intense, complex mystery will satisfy especially those who are environmentally conscious, but overall, this is one bang-up read.--Gloria Drake, Oswego P.L. Dist., IL © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A man washes ashore in the Outer Hebrides, the pages of his memory completely blank, while in Edinburgh a troubled teen suspects her father did not, as she was told, commit suicide.The author of a trilogy and two series, May scores here with a standout stand-alone. At its core is an eminently satisfying, multilayered mystery populated with sharply drawn characters. In an immediately engaging opening scene, a man struggles to his feet on a beach on the Isle of Harris. Shivering, confused, and disoriented, he cannot recall how he landed here. Worse, he does not know who he is, though islanders recognize him. Guided, then settled into a cottage he scarcely recognizes, he eventually reunites with Sally, a woman who recalls, and resumes, their affair. Attempting to help him recover, she walks with him up the eponymous Coffin Road, where, in a hollow, they discover several beehives. Curiously, the narrators hands bear evidence of bee stings. Sally also prompts the narrator, who comes to think his name is Neal, that he was writing a book about the mysterious disappearance a hundred years ago on a nearby island of three men. To jog his memory, Neal journeys to the island only to discover a corpse with its head split open. Neal fears he was the killer, and police soon think likewise. Meanwhile, in Edinburgh, the narrative follows Karen, who, in the two years following her fathers suicide, has gone from being Daddys little girl to Mothers nightmare. Investigating her fathers suicide, Karen comes to believe he did not kill himselfthat he is indeed alive. That conviction sends her into the Highlands, where she faces her own peril. The many threads of the story play out against a landscape that May, a native Scot, renders vividly. His images capture the capricious play of light and weather across the sea and the moors, matching the surprises in his tale. A thoroughly entertaining yarn. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
