Entry Island

by Peter May

Overview

THE 12 MILLION COPY BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE LEWIS TRILOGY, THE ENZO FILES AND THE CHINA THRILLERS
AWARD WINNING AUTHOR OF THE CWA DAGGER IN THE LIBRARY 2021

'Peter May is one of the most accomplished novelists writing today.' Undiscovered Scotland
'No one can create a more eloquently written suspense novel than Peter May.' New York Journal of Books

A detective is haunted by the feeling he knows his murder suspect - despite the fact they have never met.

IF YOU FLEE FATE...

When Detective Sime Mackenzie is sent from Montreal to investigate a murder on the remote Entry Island, 850 miles from the Canadian mainland, he leaves behind him a life of sleeplessness and regret.

FATE WILL FIND YOU...

But what had initially seemed an open-and-shut case takes on a disturbing dimension when he meets the prime suspect, the victim's wife, and is convinced that he knows her - even though they have never met.

And when his insomnia becomes punctuated by dreams of a distant Scottish past in another century, this murder in the Gulf of St. Lawrence leads him down a path he could never have foreseen, forcing him to face a conflict between his professional duty and his personal destiny.

LOVED ENTRY ISLAND? Read the first book in Peter May's acclaimed China thrillers series, THE FIREMAKER
LOVE PETER MAY? Buy his new thriller, THE NIGHT GATE

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781782062226
Publisher:	Quercus Publishing
Publication date:	12/05/2013
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	NOOK Book
Sales rank:	4,850
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Peter May was born and raised in Scotland. He was an award-winning journalist at the age of twenty-one and a published novelist at twenty-six. When his first book was adapted as a major drama series for the BBC, he quit journalism and during the high-octane fifteen years that followed, became one of Scotland's most successful television dramatists. He created three prime-time drama series, presided over two of the highest-rated serials in his homeland as script editor and producer, and worked on more than 1,000 episodes of ratings-topping drama before deciding to leave television to return to his first love, writing novels.

In 2021, he was awarded the CWA Dagger in the Library Award. He has also won several literature awards in France, received the USA's Barry Award for The Blackhouse, the first in his internationally bestselling Lewis Trilogy; and in 2014 was awarded the ITV Specsavers Crime Thriller Book Club Best Read of the Year award for Entry Island. Peter now lives in South-West France with his wife, writer Janice Hally.

Editorial Reviews

"A Gordian-knotted plot . . . The final result is a fascinating glimpse into a shameful and frequently overlooked aspect of British history. The author has followed the ties that spread out from the Hebrides to the strong Scottish Gaelic-speaking communities on North America's eastern seaboard and used them to embellish a modern murder mystery."—The Independent

"May is the master of painting a vivid picture of his chosen landscapes and weaving a fascinating plot. The research he has packed in to this well-paced dual tale is impressive . . . An absorbing read from a writer at the top of his game."—Daily Express

"Breathes fresh life into his writing while allowing many of the themes he likes to explore, such as secrets from the past that carry through to the present, to be revisited."—Crimepieces

"May follows his superb Lewis trilogy with an equally absorbing work . . . Mackenzie's historical quest merges rivetingly with his 21st century police work."—Marcel Berlins, The Times

"In a word, superlative and a book to get lost in."—Deadly Pleasures Magazine

"This is a tale of two islands, two mysteries, and two places and times. A tale of misfits isolated within their own cultures, and a tale of cultures battling each other, both in the 1800s and today."—Suspense Magazine

"...a police procedural with elements of romance plus a healthy infusion of historical fiction. That it works so well is owing to May's ability to create atmosphere you can cut with a dirk and to his storytelling prowess that sweeps all before it."—Library Journal

"Fascinating history. May is wonderful at atmosphere."—Booklist

From the Publisher

2015-07-01
A Montreal cop reeling from his divorce confronts ancestral tragedy when he's sent to investigate a murder on a remote island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Sime (pronounced Sheem, and Scots Gaelic for Simon) Mackenzie is called to the stark setting to investigate the murder of a local businessman. No one quite believes the victim's wife's claim that she was startled by an intruder and her husband was killed in the struggle. The investigative team, including Sime's ex, Marie-Ange, appears to be merely marking time until they can formerly charge the newly minted widow. But something in the woman stirs Sime's memory, though they haven't met, and the disappearance of a local man makes it harder for this haggard policeman to accept his colleagues' foregone conclusion. May (The Blackhouse, 2011, etc.) has constructed the book so that the investigation alternates with an account of one of Sime's ancestors and his forced repatriation from Glasgow to Canada. As in the contemporary sections, the plotting is clunky, much of the writing is expository, and what's meant to be descriptive too often feels as if the reader has opened the encyclopedia to an entry on Scottish agriculture of the 18th century ("the thatch from the roof, blackened and thick with the sticky residue of peat soot, that we laid on the lazy beds with kelp to feed the potatoes"). Bleak settings needn't be drab—Emily Brontë knew that. But May's transplanted Scots have given up the gloaming for the gloomy.

Kirkus Reviews