Entry Island

Fans of May’s Lewis trilogy (The Chessmen, etc.) will welcome this solid standalone, which likewise involves crime on an isolated island. When the Montreal police learn of a murder on Entry Island, an English-speaking outpost of the Magdalen Islands in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Det. Sime Mackenzie reluctantly joins his murder-squad teammates on the long flight east. Conveniently, Mackenzie, who’s deep into a bout of insomnia stemming from the recent dissolution of his marriage, is the only one fluent in French and English. On the island, wealthy businessman James Cowell is dead, allegedly stabbed by an intruder who tried to attack Cowell’s wife, Kirsty. Mackenzie is unusually drawn to Kirsty, a native islander who hasn’t left Entry in 10 years; he’s positive he’s met her before. Mackenzie’s dreams of 19th-century Scottish crofters (farmers) and their doomed struggle with powerful landowners, a conflict known as the Highland Clearances, which directly affected his ancestors and perhaps Kirsty’s, too, provide a powerful counterpoint to the present-day story line. (Sept.)