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A Winter Grave takes place in the not-too-distant future, in 2051. It begins with the discovery of the body of an investigative reporter. A: I chose Kinlochleven because it was a place I knew and loved. But it was also the perfect location for my story. And ideal for painting a picture of how our world might be transformed by climate change.
Q: I’m told it was the COP 26 summit which made you take more serious notice of climate change. Is your hope that, by presenting it like this, more people will pay attention to the issues of climate change and what the future could hold? Peter also looked into the possible transport of the future driven by electricity and green hydrogen produced by renewable energies, for example an eVTOL plane, plus icom mobiles. He used a specifically commissioned drone to explore the area high up above the loch he uses within A Winter Grave and used the footage from that within his story. Q: In your research, was this how the scientists you spoke to saw the Scotland of 2051, with the seas rising due to melting ice caps, etc? I worried, initially, that May was being drawn into the controversial climate change debate. Not at all. Instead he makes a massive comment on it, one which I - and I hope many others - have worried about, and will continue to argue. I don't want to give the plot away, so I won't comment further on how the plot develops. Suffice it to say that this is food for thought, and if you care about the future of the world, this book is essential reading, because it is a stark reminder of what ought to be being considered. 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.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. A young meteorologist takes a work based trek up a mountain and is faced with a dead body, frozen in ice. This chance discovery leads to a rollercoaster of secrets and intrigue and the body count starts to mount in this bleak and remote landscape. 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.' So I had no intention of writing A Winter Grave. It was only because I had read a synopsis of the IPCC’s latest report and it was chilling and unequivocal – something has to be done this decade. COP26 was coming along and this was the chance to do this and I followed what happened there very carefully.” Dismayed 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
No idea. But someone was out there in the hall listening to us talking in here. I don't know how much they could hear, or why they would want to, but they ran off through the snow when I went after them with my torch.' 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. A Winter Grave isn’t the first time Peter has looked at the impacts of climate change in his writing, “I have always been interested in the environment and the planet and what we are doing to it,” he says “I wrote Coffin Road (2006) about the disappearance of the bees – at that point I am thinking this is a serious problem, and I want to write about it but how do you engage people?” This is another terrific, riveting read from a creative and talented author. I love the attention to detail in things such as possible advances between 2022/23 and the future and he makes it feel plausible. Equally credible is the immensely sobering climate change scenario and the political impact this could have. He makes me completely buy into it and be even more mindful and concerned. Cameron Brodie is an experienced policeman who’s just received a devastating health prognosis. As a keen hillwalker, he is asked to fly to the village to ascertain whether the death was accidental, or more sinister.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 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. Unusually for the painstaking researcher, Covid travel restrictions meant Peter wasn’t able to get to Scotland. I had never thought about being a journalist but I got a place on an NCTJ training course in Edinburgh, trained for a year and got a job on the Paisley Daily Express.”
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