The Wolf Tree

She has a death wish, he’d rather retire than help—in “The Wolf Tree” by Laura McCluskey, Georgina “George” Lennox and Richard “Richie” Stewart make for a weird pairing in a complicated story about life and death on Eilean Eadar, an isolated Scottish island.

After months of leave due to having been injured during an operation, George makes it back to the police force and her old partner, Richie. Their assignment is to look into the assumed suicide of a young man from the aforementioned island, due to “inconsistencies”.

At the outset, everything seems fine and the small community of about 200 people is close-knit. And, yet, there is something “off” from early on that neither the reader nor the inspectors can exactly point to.

Sounds good, eh? Sadly, this is just the promising beginning of a story that, for a long time, doesn’t seem to go anywhere. George is bold to a fault, but never hesitates to help if she’s needed. She does take some risks because she can’t help it. On the other hand, George has some serious issues and that might impact her judgement.

Richie, in contrast, struck me as less than interested in the entire investigation: he implicitly asks George to be negligent in her duties - not to help - if it might pose any risk to her. Of course, Richie himself acts just like that. I wouldn’t put it beyond him to just “look the other way”.

We get a good look at the island, the islanders, both primary and secondary characters. What we do not get is anywhere beyond descriptions and character studies. There are very few actual results during the investigation, and only conveniently at the very end do lots of things happen in quick succession, leading to a dramatic showdown at land’s end.

What could have been a highly interesting police procedural, or mystery gets bogged down by endless walking and talking across the island. There were flashbacks to what happened to George that were so distracting, I actually looked up if I had somehow stumbled into the middle of a series. (I hadn’t; I think.)

Everything on the island reads like doom and gloom – the harsh islanders, sometimes referring to outsiders as “mainland scum”, two storms during one week, rain, cold, snow – it’s bleak out there, and so it reads. Some light outbreaks of humour…

»“Mr. Nicholson,” Richie says, stooping to be at eye level with the headstone, “thank you for letting us stay in your home.”

George puts her lips to Richie’s ear and croaks, “I died in that bed.”

Richie glowers at her. “Have a modicum of respect for the dead, DI Lennox.”«

…are quickly stifled by foreshadowing, rain, or people.

The writing itself is captivating - relentlessly bleak, yes, but never forced; the gloom settles around the story and characters in a way that feels both real and essential to the book’s atmosphere. There are a few irritations, like Richie occasionally being called "Rich" just to mark supposedly significant moments, which feels a touch clumsy. The prose isn’t high-brow or particularly elegant, but there’s a genuine accessibility to it that made reading easy and, at times, unexpectedly enjoyable. I genuinely liked the author’s style, if not her story.

In the end, when everything suddenly falls into place, the story becomes very convoluted, rather hard to believe, and hardly anything feels resolved.

Still, “The Wolf Tree” was weirdly captivating. It wasn’t that suspenseful, so I guess I must have wanted to know how it ends. Don’t let that happen to you.

Three stars out of five.

Ceterum censeo Putin esse delendam