This is book that is very different in the best way. It takes place in the island of Eadar off the coast of Scotland and in the Western Hebrides. It exists in a different time capsule, having never moved into the modern world an still being controlled by centuries old beliefs. Given its small population and distance from the mainland if there is anything that needs an official, they have to come from the mainland. Otherwise the island is controlled by the priest and local figures. That is why two detectives have arrived to investigate the death of an eighteen year old youth decided by the locals to have committed suicide. The detectives almost go along with that until close to going home agreeing with that verdict, they are given information that changes that conclusion and will lead to arrests in an island that can’t afford to lose any of its residents. The book is very well written and the story hangs together well. It is an unusual and satisfying read. I recommend it.

A haunting story of a routine police investigation on a remote Scottish island that gains momentum in the final chapters as it seems there is more to the local community than meets the eye.

This book is one’s for fans of atmospheric thrillers and crime novels - if you are a fan of Shetland and other Scottish Noir TV shows and novels, you will love this.

An isolated Scottish island, a mysterious death - our investigators arrive in the midst of a terrible storm. With no regular contact with the mainland, they are beholden to the island inhabitants. But is the young man’s suicide all that it seems - and who can be trusted on the island?

Fighting her own demons from a previous case, George is suspicious of the bruises noted on the body. And what are the mysterious howls she hears at night?

I never really believed that the novel would go down the supernatural route, but the eeriness of the deserted setting is palpable, and the atmosphere lends an extra dimension to the mystery.

Well worth a read!

Eilean Eadar is an isolated rocky island where the same families have lived for generations. It has been overlooked by the mainland for years — to the extent that Catholicism is still the prominent religion despite Scotland's strong Protestant beliefs. When a boy/man of 18 is found dead, beneath the lighthouse, the authorities send two detectives over to investigate his death, the coroner having found bruising on the body which was not consistent with the fall.
Georgina ‘George’ Lennox is a newly promoted DI and her partner is a long standing DI, Richie Stewart. The two have gotten along for years until George was attacked one night after venturing into a flat without checking the property had been secured. She has spent time in hospital and is now on strong pain killers as she tries to navigate her way back to work.
This should be a straightforward job for them to confirm the death was a suicide but things begin to unravel around them and they are unsure which of the islanders they can trust. The weather closes in and Richie and George become trapped on the island, just as they know what has been happening.
I enjoyed the story, which is something of a slow burn. The main characters all have issues but there are some lighter moments between George and Richie too., The island is well described and very evocative and threatening backdrop. To say much more would give away plot. The final reveal is a little complicated, or not very well explained, although it does make sense when you understand what is happening.
Over all and excellent debut novel.
With thanks to Netgalley and HarperCollins UK, HarperFiction for an arc copy in return for an honest review.

Two Glasgow DIs are sent to a remote Scottish island to investigate the apparent suicide of an eighteen year old boy. They find a closed community, suspicious of mainlanders and beholden to ancient superstitions, Christian and pagan. But can they find the truth?

The Wolf Tree is written in a literary style that might be called atmospheric, but in truth there is very little plot development for most of the book. Lead character DI Georgina (George) Lennox could have been an intriguing character. Suffering PTSD after injuries on a previous case and newly back at work, but her past is never quite fully explained.

Endless walks in the countryside, more tales of fishing and farming, yet more stereotypically taciturn islanders ... It's only in the final section that things come together and the truth begins to emerge. And the rush to a conclusion feels forced. Overall there was just enough to keep the interest, but only just.

A gripping page turner that had me up late at night until I had finished it. Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for giving me a copy of the novel. Highly recommended.

It took a little while for me to get into this book but something kept me intrigued and wanting to know more. Definitely worth reading to the end as everything came together in the final quater of the book. This was meant to be an easy case to ease George back in but her and Richie were soon involved in something much bigger.

Great characters and great setting.
The isolated small community is packed full to the brim with atmosphere.
In a town where everybody knows your business, are people still keeping secrets?
This took an unexpected turn for me, and it was a very good one.
Kept me glued to the pages until the end.
I hope there's more to come from these two.

The story opens on a boat and pretty much sets the atmosphere of bleakness and isolation from the start. DI George Lennox is on her way to investigate an apparent suicide on a remote and desolate island. With DI Richard Stewart she buckles down for the incoming storm that menaces and threatens this isolated and suspicious community. Ways of lives little changed are deeply seated in religion and ancestors and outsiders are always seen as a threat. Rural communities communicate much with a look, a feeling and a crime that brings in outsiders is a threat to them all. This is a dark and menacing story with threats hidden in the layers and years of the islanders history. Fascinating and addictive I enjoyed every moment.

Loved the slight supernatural feel of this book, the tight knit rather strange community was perfect for this book!
Will look out for more books by Laura McCluskey

Thanks to NetGalley for an arc for this truly amazing read. Here’s my honest review and am I can say is you have to give this a try especially if this is your book genre. I was gripped from the start to the end and didn’t put it down! Been laid up so this was a perfect escape for the day and it didn’t disappoint In The slightest! Loved the characters and the plot line kept me on my toes.

A young man has presumably committed suicide by throwing himself off the lighthouse on the remote Scottish Island of Eadar. Its thought to be a simple assignment for DIs George (Georgina) Lennox and Richie Stewart, simple because George is recovering from an on the job injury. It’s not that simple. The island is plagued by constant wild storms. The residents are cold, unfriendly and seem to be hiding something. Although the population is small, no one seems to know much about the unfortunate young man. All are devoted to their small church but behind their religion lie ancient old habits and suspicions. These practices are not to be shared and the detectives face unknown danger as they try to link them to the suicide.

The Wolf Tree is a deliberately slow paced combination of mystery and horror. The relationship between George and Richie faces changes that may destroy it as George is impulsive and fast acting compared to the more thoughtful Richie. She’s also using pain and sleep medication regularly because of her still healing injuries and Richie feels this is leading to addiction. He may be right. I like the pairing of the two and this complicated plot. However, it is Eadar, with its haunting, violent weather, that is the star of The Wolf Tree. 5 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley, Harper Collins UK and Laura McCluskey for this ARC.

A page turner, intriguing and fascinating. A different concept, new and exciting.*************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

This was such an interesting book. A damaged detective inspector George (Georgia) and her protective friend/father figure partner DI Richie head to one of Scotland’s isolated small community islands to investigate an apparent suicide for any evidence of foul play. The site of this suicide just happens to be at the site of a centuries old mystery of missing lighthouse keepers. They receive a mixed welcome and soon strange behaviours, howling at night and local superstitions all converge in a story that kept me
Guessing until the end.
The main character is not particularly likeable as of yet but I did like the friendship between Her and Richie. There were a few grammatical errors but nothing major. I thoroughly enjoyed this book with its mix of old mystery and current thriller moments.

It could be argued that the author is a little more focused on creating an uncanny atmosphere than is strictly necessary when she could be concentrating on drawing the reader in through genuine action in order to make them want to keep turning the pages.

A remote (fictional) Hebridean island sounds like an ideal location in which to create a crackling crime novel, but somehow the narrative feels too flat and uninspired for it to be any more than a mediocre text in the already crowded market place of contemporary crime fiction. At least for this reader it is. The islanders — all unsympathetic in their own way — are predictably passive-aggressive in their suspicion of the two police inspectors from the Scottish mainland attempting to unravel the mysteries of an alleged suicide and there is insufficient tension in terms of any locals who might ostensibly have a motive for murdering the victim instead of him taking his own life. For a small island there appear to be an awful lot of people with similar-sounding names which some readers will find confusing. Arguably, the author would have been wiser to centre on fewer characters, but to explore them in more depth — their lives, their role within the community, any reason they may have disliked the victim and wanted him to be gone.

The Wolf Tree is supposedly the author's debut at crime writing, yet it's threaded with constant obscure references to a previous case in which the female DI was injured, but the circumstances are never fully explained. This not only adds to the novel's numerous shortcomings, it also makes one wonder what the point of these indicators is if the author chooses not to enlighten the reader. Furthermore, the random shifts between past and present tense, sometimes even within the same paragraph, add to a sense of incompetence on the part of the author. .

The reader has to wait until fifty pages before the end of this 350 page novel for anything even remotely typical of genuine crime fiction to take place. For the sake of the author and her publishers I hope other readers show the perseverance necessary to get this far in the narrative without giving up.

Many thanks to the publishers and to Netgalley for the ARC.

4* An engrossing read with an unempathetic and unlikeable female lead.

Let's get this out here - I disliked Georgina/George, her headstrong ways, her selfishness, her lies, her attacks on Rich, her chip on her shoulder and her attitude, despite sort of knowing about the trauma in her past via flashbacks. But the author kept those flashbacks incomplete and made Georgina seem all of the above, so tbh, I didn't care about her. Rich was the gentler, kinder, fatherly contrasting cop, and I actually liked Georgina having to take it when he chastised her and expressed his disappointment and doubts in her, because of - well, take your pick of the above. Did she deserve it? Yes. Did the author let us 'see' George? Nope. Did that spoil the tale? No. It was a good read, but ugh, slow, dull and confusing in parts due to lies, obfuscation and the inhabitants' beliefs. And because of the godforsaken weather on the island. How come the weather wasn't a portent that what the inhabitants were doing was wrong, because after all, their lives depended on it, and they believed in signs from beyond/bigger/other?

I sussed out pretty quickly who was at the core of stuff that happened on the self-policing island, but finding out another's part in it, right at the very end, was a shocker I hadn't seen coming. I don't think these people knew the meaning of doing the right thing, having a guilty conscience, of not lying, of going against their church that was meant to be at the centre of island life. They were all in on it, and they looked each other in the eye, lied silently to each other's faces, never acknowledged anything openly, lived with lies, obfuscation and subterfuge. How could everyone, including the seemingly OK Lewis, be so complicit, so devoid of a moral compass?

It was worth the read, but I'm not sure George has anything redeeming about her that'd make me get invested in her, root for her or want to see her as the lead of another book. She needs medical help, counselling, a good dose of honesty and to be benched for a while.

Hopefully the tale will undergo more editing, because the Ethan reveal was clumsy and hard to understand due to the wording. I had to read it about 3 times, think back to his previous appearances, his attitude and aggression, before I clocked. And as that's a huge catalyst for events in the tale, it needs to be clearer.

ARC courtesy of NetGalley and Harper Collins UK, Harper Fiction, Hemlock Press, for my reading pleasure.

The Wolf Tree by Laura McCluskey

On a small island off the coast of Scotland, an isolated community is grieving. Eighteen-year-old Alan Ferguson was found at the foot of the lighthouse – an apparent suicide.

DIs Georgina Lennox and Richard Stewart are sent to investigate. A raging storm keeps them trapped on the island for four days. And the locals don’t take kindly to mainlanders.
A great read that kept me reading as I didn't want to put it down. Great characters in Geogina and Richard and I enjoyed reading about their relationship and the way they worked together.

A good debut novel set on a remote island in Scotland where DIs Georgina Lennox and Richard Stewart have been sent to investigate a apparent suicide, but is there more to the death then meets the eye, the plot had a few good twists and will definitely keep you guessing and I hope to read more from Laura McClusky.

Excellent story. More twisted than you could imagine. Couldn't put it down.
Can't wait for more from Laura McCluskey.