Peter May: Exclusive extract

The next issue of Writing Magazine will include a thought-provoking article by Peter on how he was inspired by the science to create crime thrillers with a terrifying backdrop of climate crisis. To give you a taste of what he's talking about, read an exclusive extract from his new novel, A Winter Grave:

It takes her breath away. A perfect cathedral arch formed in large, geometric dimples of nascent ice stalactites above the rock and the blackened vegetation beneath it. Light from the top end of the tunnel floods down like the water before it, turning the ice blue. Big enough for her to crawl into.
She quickly removes her pack and delves into one of its pockets to retrieve her camera, then drops to her knees and climbs carefully inside. She stops several times to take photographs. Then a selfie, with the tunnel receding behind her. But she wants to capture the colour and structure of the arch, and turns on to her back so that she can shoot up and back towards the light.
The man is almost directly overhead, encased in the ice. Fully dressed, in what occurs incongruously to Addie as wholly inadequate climbing gear. He is lying face down, arms at his side, eyes and mouth wide open, staring at her for all the world as though he were still alive. But there is neither breath in his lungs, nor sight in his eyes. And Addie’s scream can be heard echoing all around the Coire an dà Loch below.

(From the prologue)