Very much character led story but became a bit too fuddled. I could not imagine a Scottish Island where everyone se3med to have so much free time spent in the cafe. It made me think of how unrealistic amount of time is spent in the pubs on tv soaps.

The Island of Adventure... 4 stars

Young Max Wheeler goes off to spend the night camping on uninhabited Priest's Island, a storm-tossed island in the Outer Hebrides off the west coast of Scotland. His rich father had bought the island as a playground for him a couple of years earlier, much to the annoyance of the townspeople on the neighbouring island of Eilean Dubh, who resented this intrusion into their traditional way of life. Priest's Island had belonged for generations to a local family who had used it for grazing their sheep. When Max fails to return and no trace of him is found, Ewan, the local lad who would have inherited the island had it not been sold to the Wheelers, quickly becomes the chief suspect. But no evidence has ever been found to allow him to be charged. Five years on, Max's father has hired Cal McGill, an oceanographer and expert in tides and waves, in a last ditch effort to trace Max's body. But Cal's appearance stirs old fears and resentments amongst the townspeople and soon danger stalks more than one inhabitant...

This is the third in the Cal McGill series but the first I've read. It worked perfectly well as a standalone and I didn't feel I was missing anything from not having read the earlier books. The mystery element of the plot is very good – I didn't get close to the solution but, when it was revealed, felt that it was well within the bounds of credibility. I did think the plotting lacked a little by failing to provide possible alternative explanations though – there weren't too many red herrings sending me off in the wrong direction. This meant that for quite a long time in the middle I felt the investigation element was rather underdeveloped – neither Cal nor his police officer sidekick Helen Jamieson seemed to be doing very much other than treading water (pun intended) while hoping someone might let something slip. In fact, Cal's specialism played very little part in the story – always a problem when an amateur detective is given such a specific profession.

However, the depiction of the isolated small town on the edge of nowhere is done very well although, oddly, it lacks any feeling of Scottishness – no dialect, no Scottish traditions, not even Scottish cakes in the tea-shop at the heart of the community. It could as easily have been a small island community set anywhere in the world. But the way they band together when one of their number is threatened feels very realistic, as does the way they all know everything about each other and make allowances for one another's quirks. The weather plays a large part in the story, and Douglas-Home gives excellent descriptions of the wildness of storms and how quickly these island communities can be cut off from the mainland.

There's a sub-plot involving an egg-collector – a hobby that's now illegal in order to protect threatened bird species. I found all the stuff about this added a real level of interest to the story – it feels well-researched and authentic, and sent me off to google images of some of the eggs and nests mentioned. Since some of these collectors go to ridiculous lengths in pursuit of rare eggs, it also allows for some hair-raisingly dangerous exploits and extra suspense (that's also a pun, but if you want to know why, you'll have to read the book...).

The writing is very good – third person past tense – hurrah! In this episode we don't get to know too much about Cal's life – there's a little history about his relationship with his father but not much else. However we learn more about Helen Jamieson. She's a police officer, refreshingly competent and angst-free apart from her apparently unrequited longings for Cal, but she doesn't allow these to get in the way of having a good professional relationship with him. I actually found myself thinking of her as the central character rather than Cal, so I hope she's a recurring character in the series.

Overall, I enjoyed this one a lot, and will happily look out for more in this series. Recommended.

NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, Penguin UK.