A Long Time Dead

You can’t stay dead forever....

A group of high school students gather on the Isle of Skye’s remote Coral Beach for a hedonistic night of dancing, drugs, and alcohol to celebrate the passing of their finals. The new millennium is on the horizon and the future beckons, promising new hope and a fresh wind of optimism. In the coming days, many will leave the island for work or to study on the mainland, whereas others will remain on Skye and forge a more traditional path, much as their families have done for centuries before them. That is...all but one....

D.I. Duncan McAdam is dispatched home to the Misty Isle. A body has been found buried in a remote location on the Waternish peninsula. Well-preserved in the peat, Isla Matheson—missing for the better part of two decades—is revealed to a shocked island community. A teenage runaway is dead...and no one is talking.

Joining a small team of detectives, Duncan is tasked with revisiting those who knew Isla, those who cared for her...and those with the potential to kill her. In a remote community well-used to settling scores among themselves, will they trust one of their own when he asks questions or will they persevere with the façade of ignorance?

As he uncovers the island’s long-held secrets, Duncan must face his own demons. Old wounds he thought long healed have opened and this time, he cannot hide from them, he cannot run, and he won’t like the answers he is given. Skye is a place of mystery with a landscape of rugged beauty, but one that Duncan feels should exist only in his memories...or perhaps his worst nightmares.

A Long Time Dead is the first in a new series of crime thrillers from the multi-million best-selling crime writer, J M Dalgliesh, the author of the Hidden Norfolk and Dark Yorkshire books.