Entry Island is part of the remote Iles de la Madeleine in
the Gulf of St. Lawrence far off the coast of Quebec,
Canada. When Montreal detective Sime Mackenzie is assigned
to an investigative team going to Entry Island, he's
dealing with insomnia brought on by a bitter divorce and
his lonely, unfulfilled life. It does not help that his
unfaithful ex-wife is also part of the team, and it's a
very small island. With a population of barely over 100,
there's now one less with the murder of its wealthiest
inhabitant.
Of course, the victim's wife is the most likely suspect,
since she was found with his blood all over her. Moreover,
her explanation of what took place seems a little unlikely
given all the evidence at the scene. Sime, however, is
inclined to believe her. Upon their first meeting, Sime
feels a close affinity and is sure he knows her from
somewhere. Now his insomnia is plagued by dreams of an
earlier life on a Scottish island -- and she is there with
him. Could these dreams be triggered by the stories from an
ancestor's diaries that were read to Sime as a child? He
has to find out the connection, and soon, since the rest of
Sime's team is convinced he's lost all perspective on the
murder case.
Smartly written with a precise use of flashbacks and
complex characters, Peter May's ENTRY ISLAND is a
riveting crime thriller. Surprising revelations from the
ancestor's diaries add significant elements to the present-
day suspense, leading to an emotionally intense conclusion.
Peter May again proves his writing prowess with this
exciting new thriller.
Marilyn Stasio in The New York Times raved: "Peter
May is a writer I'd follow to the ends of the earth." Now
Peter May takes us to a small island off the coast of Québec
with an emotionally charged new mystery.
When a murder rocks the isolated community of Entry Island,
insomniac homicide detective Sime Mackenzie boards a light
aircraft at St. Hubert airfield bound for the small,
scattered chain of Madeline Islands, in the Gulf of St.
Lawrence, as part of an eight-officer investigation team
from Montréal.
Only two kilometers wide and three long, Entry Island is
home to a population of just more than 100 inhabitants, the
wealthiest of whom has just been discovered murdered in his
home. Covered in her husband's blood, the dead man's
melancholy wife spins a tale for the police about a masked
intruder armed with a knife.
The investigation appears to be little more than a
formality--the evidence points to a crime of passion,
implicating the wife. But Sime is electrified by the widow
during his interview, convinced that he has met her before,
even though this is clearly impossible.
Haunted by this strange certainty, Sime's insomnia is
punctuated by vivid, hallucinatory dreams of a distant past
on a Scottish island 3,000 miles away, dreams in which he
and the widow play leading roles. Sime's conviction soon
becomes an obsession. And despite mounting evidence of the
woman's guilt, he finds himself convinced of her innocence,
leading to a conflict between the professional duty he must
fulfill and the personal destiny he is increasingly sure
awaits him.