Deadly Prospects — Clio Gray

1869, Sutherland, Scotland For years the people of this remote area of the Highlands have been hard done by; fifteen thousand of them cleared from the land earlier in the century to make way for sheep. Those from Kildonan went to Brora to work in the coal mines and brick kilns, until 1828 when the mines were closed and the people there left destitute. Now a local Gold Rush has attracted the Pan-European Mining Company to the area, and Solveig McCleery is determined to re-open the Brora mines and give the population back everything they were robbed of forty years before. But when work starts on re-opening the mines, the body of a prospector is discovered, odd inscriptions found on stones near the corpse. And before the meaning of these strange marks can be deciphered another body is discovered. Are these attacks connected to the re-opening of the mines? Will Solveig's plan succeed in bringing peace and prosperity back to the area? Or has she put in motion something far more sinister? The language is rich with the places and times Gray leads her readers into, from the volcanic eruption in Iceland that covers the land with ash, to the icy wastes of Finnmark, where Scandinavia and Russia meet. And from this snowy frontier, a stranger comes, intent on tracking down the loose-ends of his past, all of which end up in Kildonan, and the woman who is single-handedly trying to breathe life back into the valley after the decimation of the Clearances half a century before. Deadly Prospects is a well-researched and satisfying mystery story that explores the rich history and heritage of the Scottish Highlands. An engrossing page-turner that takes the reader back into a different place and time. Robert Foster, best-selling author of The Lunar Code. Gray is a writer you can rely on not to write quite like anyone else…more Mervyn Peake and Gormenghast than Jane Austen and Sense and Sensibility. Lesley McDowell & Colin Waters, Scottish Sunday Herald. Clio Gray has an incredible flair for atmosphere, imagery, setting and description. Reading her is like being at a sumptuous feast in a palace, just before it is stormed. Alan Bissett, Author.