On a weather‑beaten rock forty miles west of the Hebrides, they still call Skarav ‘Island of the Dead’ – a place of sheer cliffs, vanished communities and secrets buried as deep as the graves in its thin soil.
When Ethan MacGregor returns there for the first time in fourteen years, it is not for the scenery but an ultimatum: face what happened the night his first love fell from the island’s highest cliff, or lose his wife and baby daughter.
At seventeen, Donna Gillies was fearless, barefoot and the only girl Ethan ever truly loved – until she died on a moonlit August night, pregnant and broken on the rocks below a headland called The Saddle. The island has never doubted who killed her: Christopher MacGregor, Ethan’s devout father.
As a storm season closes in, Ethan makes his fated return to The Saddle, finding there the traumatised families, the politics of a shrinking island, and the dangerous loyalties of a group of friends who once believed they would all escape.
On an island where the dead are never far from the living, Island of the Dead is a tense, atmospheric thriller about faith and obsession, first love and generational guilt – and about whether the truth,
once unearthed, can ever set anyone free.
When Ethan MacGregor returns there for the first time in fourteen years, it is not for the scenery but an ultimatum: face what happened the night his first love fell from the island’s highest cliff, or lose his wife and baby daughter.
At seventeen, Donna Gillies was fearless, barefoot and the only girl Ethan ever truly loved – until she died on a moonlit August night, pregnant and broken on the rocks below a headland called The Saddle. The island has never doubted who killed her: Christopher MacGregor, Ethan’s devout father.
As a storm season closes in, Ethan makes his fated return to The Saddle, finding there the traumatised families, the politics of a shrinking island, and the dangerous loyalties of a group of friends who once believed they would all escape.
On an island where the dead are never far from the living, Island of the Dead is a tense, atmospheric thriller about faith and obsession, first love and generational guilt – and about whether the truth,
once unearthed, can ever set anyone free.
Reviews
This is a powerful exploration of human depravity and excessive family loyalty, set in glorious surroundings
Laced with melancholy, this is May at his very best . . . Do not miss it, it is unforgettable
The Black Loch combines all the elements which propelled May to literary stardom: a likeable but deeply flawed protagonist, a plot that is centred on an island for which May clearly has an abiding love, and a narrative that unwinds slowly but surely through the inevitable twists and red herrings
Atmospheric, evocative, tense and compelling, this thought-provoking drama is another triumph from the master of moody crime
This may be a chilling and enthralling crime thriller but Peter May's prose is exquisite, creating a sense of place brilliantly. The imagery surrounding the natural landscape is transformative, making the setting every bit as important as character or plot