Entry Island

Montreal detective Sime Mackenzie is a lonely and depressed man. He is asked to accompany a French speaking investigation team to Entry Island where Kirsty Cowell, the widow of the victim, is the prime suspect. When Sime meets her for the first time he has the feeling that he somehow knows her, but can't remember where they've met.

Sime is the only native English speaker within the French speaking team, and has joined them for this case due to the language of Entry Island being English rather than French. Sime and his ex-wife, Marie-Ange, the team’s forensic expert, have a volatile relationship and it doesn't help that he hasn't been able to sleep in weeks. Eventually Sime finds himself dozing off, until dreams from the past start to show more haunt him. He seems to have become a part of the stories his Grandmother told him of his Scottish ancestors, crofters who had lived on the Isle of Lewis. Greedy landlords who wanted to replace them with sheep, brutally removed from their homes during the “clearances”and forced them onto boats to America.

Like he did in the Lewis Trilogy, Peter May is an expert at bringing to life the atmosphere of both Entry Island and the Isle of Lewis. He seamlessly weaves the two tales together. While the modern day mystery was interesting it was almost secondary to the mesmerizing historical story of a country that was almost destroyed by its landowners. I thought this was both a compelling mystery and a highly atmospheric read. show less

After the Lewis trilogy I wanted more, more from the islands. In this new book, I did get more of Lewis, back in the 1830's when people were removed from the land and shipped to Canada. Entry Island moves back and forth from Lewis to the Entry island situated in the St Lawrence . A murder has taken place on the island and Sime MacKenzie is part of the team investigating. Sime's family has come from Scotland and it is his great great great grandfather who tells the Lewis part of this story.
The book is teeming with description, history and atmosphere. The characters are complex and flawed. There is no shortage of action and the two stories kept me turning pages. There are times when a book with two plots has a strong one and the other show more plot just fills in gaps in the story line. Not so in this book. Both plots were well developed. More please, Peter May.
Read as a NetGalley. show less

Entry Island is a terrific blending of two story lines: the classic murder investigation in Canada, and the Highland Clearances on the Isle of Lewis in the 18th century. Both are so well written that I couldn't tell you which is the stronger, but I can say that the scenes on the Isle of Lewis are beautiful, brutal, and heartstopping. May has always been a skilled storyteller, but since he's begun writing of the Outer Hebrides, it's as though his heart and his emotions are flowing right onto the page. (His Lewis Trilogy is not to be missed!)

The two story lines run side-by-side, and events gradually converge without any obvious signs of how they're coming together. Sime is the perfect conflicted detective and part of an investigative team show more that includes his ex-wife-- a very uncomfortable and painful situation. May skillfully creates tension with his two main characters. While Mackenzie is a man the reader wants to support completely, the object of his obsession is clearly not as trustworthy to us as she is to the detective.

The marvelous sensory feast of place (both Scotland and Canada), a strong and intriguing main character, two vivid plot lines... part mystery, part historical novel, part romance... Entry Island is a powerful novel that should not be missed. show less

There's been a murder on the Magdalen Islands, a small archipelago in the St. Lawrence River that is part of the Province of Quebec, Canada. Sime (pronounced "Sheem") Mackenzie, an Anglophone but fluently bilingual cop with the Sûreté du Québec's homicide division, is part of a crew sent to investigate the case because the crime scene is on one of the predominantly Anglophone islands, Entry Island. The case itself is kind of an afterthought: Sime's colleagues have the case sewn up, with the victim's wife looking like the most likely criminal. But what's weird to Sime is that he's convinced he's met her before, even though he hasn't. The story alternates between the present and a distant past in Scotland as Sime investigates both the show more crime and the mystery of his acquaintance with the suspect.

This was my first Peter May book and the setting was what first attracted me to it. The Magadalen Islands (or to be more precise, les Îles de la Madeleine) don't appear much in fiction that I can recall, let alone mysteries, so the novelty of the setting was a big draw. I also liked the historical story and how it gradually caught up with the present. The Hebrides and the wilds of early Canada are brought to life in highly effective dream sequences, although it took me a sequence or two to realize what was happening and how they related to the main story. The Canadian scenes were pretty well rendered, from what I could tell -- good use of French names for places and government institutions, with explanations in English where warranted -- but I did giggle when the book mentioned Sime watching an "ice hockey match". We Canadians would just say "a hockey game".

Overall, I found this very easy to get through, despite its bulk (I was taken aback when the hold came in at the library and I saw just how big it was), and I'd read more of May's work. show less

When Detective Sime Mackenzie boards a light aircraft at Montreal's St. Hubert airfield, he does so without looking back. For Sime, the 850-mile journey ahead represents an opportunity to escape the bitter blend of loneliness and regret that has come to characterise his life in the city.Travelling as part of an eight-officer investigation team, Sime's destination lies in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Only two kilometres wide and three long, Entry Island is home to a population of around 130 inhabitants - the wealthiest of which has just been discovered murdered in his home.The investigation itself appears little more than a formality. The evidence points to a crime of passion: the victim's wife the vengeful culprit. But for Sime the show more investigation is turned on its head when he comes face to face with the prime suspect, and is convinced that he knows her - even though they have never met.
Peter May’s Entry Island is a fascinating and complex tale of murder and flawed characters. The pace is slow and languid at times, reflecting the life on Entry Island, which tricks you into a false sense of security as far as the Island is concerned. For there is a dark side to the Islanders that everyone prefers to ignore.
As Sime’s obsession grows, so does the tension, as he flies in the face of authority, becoming ever more desperate to clear Kirsty’s name.
This novel is beautifully written with two intertwined stories, which are equally compelling and fascinating, not always something authors can pull off. Peter May transports you to Entry Island where you become totally immersed in his world, hoping against hope that Sime can solve the mystery. show less

I haven’t read anything else by Peter May so I don’t know if the dual timeline is characteristic of his work, but it is used here to add depth and interest to what would otherwise be a fairly straightforward detective novel about an apparently domestic murder: when the Québec Sureté are called to a remote island to investigate the murder of one of the inhabitants, it seems immediately clear that his wife must be the killer. Sime Mackenzie (pronounced “Sheem”; it’s Gaelic) isn’t so sure, though, because he feels oddly drawn to Kirsty Cowell, the woman who is likely to be arrested. Is his feeling that he has met her before real, or is it a product of the prolonged sleeplessness that has followed the break-up of his show more marriage?

The Magdalen Islands are an archipelago in the Gulf of St Lawrence with a population of French, Scots, English and Acadians, and part of the province of Quebec; Entry Island, however, is English-speaking, and that is why Sime has been sent as part of the investigation team – to conduct interviews in English. With him he takes the baggage of his own Scots descent, distant memories of the brutal Highland Clearances which uprooted thousands of impoverished Highlanders, often putting them straight onto emigration ships bound for Canada, where those who survived the journey must make a life for themselves in the young colony. Thanks to his grandmother, Sime has grown up with the stories of his ancestry on the Isle of Lewis, but his rediscovery of that history as an adult is woven throughout his investigation of the present-day murder.

A haunting story of exile and loss, Entry Island will stay with you long after you finish reading. show less

Rating:
3 Stars

In a nutshell:
Montreal Inspector Sime (pronounced Sheem) Mackenzie has been tasked with leading a team to investigate a murder that has taken place on a tiny English-speaking island in the heart of French-speaking Canada.

Best for:
Those who enjoy stories that have elements set in current day as well as the distant past (in this case, about 200 years ago).

Worth quoting:
Nothing stuck out to me.

Why I chose it:
So I finally bought a book by Peter May - a famous Scottish crime novelist. And then I realised it was the 4th book in a trilogy (I know - hence why I didn’t know it was part of the series) that I hadn’t yet started. So I immediately put that down, and found this (standalone) audio book at my library.

Review:
When I show more started reading this book, I didn’t know it took place in two areas: Entry Island and its environs, and Lewis island, the outer Hebrides. I should have known May would work Lewis into the plot, as he is famously from there and writes about there, but I didn’t, so when that kicked off the book, I was confused. It eventually makes sense, but it took awhile for me to get up to speed.

There are two stories here. One is of Sime, who is a bilingual Inspector sent to look into a murder that took place in a tiny island of only English speakers. That part of the story is fairly standard crime fare - who did it, is it who we think, is there a twist, etc. The character of Sime is tortured, again, as we often see. His marriage has fallen apart but he still must work with his wife, he isn’t sleeping, and he’s not doing the best job of investigating this murder (did the wife do it?), partly because he gets a bit sidetracked thinking he has some connection to the wife of the victim.

The second story is the one I found much more interesting - the story of another Sime, who lives on a croft in the island of Lewis in the mid-1800s. His family deals with so much horror, including the potato famine (which I didn’t know had also affected Scotland) and the Highland Clearances, which are a nightmare that I don’t think people in the US are taught much about. We follow Sime as he eventually makes his way to Canada, and again, I didn’t realise so many Canadians would trace their ancestors to Scotland, and then … Nova Scotia. New Scotland. Wooooof.

The main story is fine, standard crime novel fare, but the story set in the 1800s was riveting, and was what saved the book for me.

Would I recommend it to its target audience:
For the target who enjoys historical fiction, yes. For the target who enjoys a modern-day crime mystery, not so much. show less