The Wolf Tree by Laura McCluskey

MysteryThriller

Mar 11

Written By taylor shepeard

Title: Wolf Tree

Author: Laura McCluskey

Publication Date: February 10, 2025

Audience: Adult

Genre: Mystery

Sub-Genre: Thriller

POV: Single

Series: Standalone

Format: Audiobook

—Narrator(s): Kirsty Cox

4 ⭐ | 0🌶️

Pros:
✨Distinctive Characters
✨Immersive Atmosphere
✨Interwoven Plot Points
✨Audiobook Narration

Cons:
✨Slow Pacing
✨Conflict is almost too neatly tied up

Synopsis

Eilean Eadar is a barren, windswept rock inhabited by a few hundred humans and sheep. Until now, the island was best known for the unsolved mystery of the three lighthouse keepers who vanished back in 1919. …

… But when a young man is found dead at the base of that same lighthouse, two detective inspectors are sent from Glasgow to investigate.
Georgina “George” Lennox is finally back from leave after a devastating accident and happy to be on the case. That is, until she meets the hostile islanders, who seem determined to thwart the investigation, and their enigmatic priest, who seems to be part of every interview. Then there’s George’s partner, Richie, who just wants to close the case and head home to his family. He doesn’t see that there is something off about this tiny community. He hasn’t heard the wolves howling or seen the dark figures at their window at night. He’s too busy watching George as if waiting for her to break.
With the dark secrets of the island swirling around them, George and Richie must decide who to trust and what to believe as they spin closer to the terrible truth. Laced with Scottish legend yet sharp and modern in voice, The Wolf Tree announces a spellbinding new voice in crime and mystery fiction.

*Blurb taken from The StoryGraph

Review

This review may contain spoilers.

After an incident on a previous case, DI George Lennox is put back into the field to investigate a supposed suicide on an isolated Scottish island alongside her partner, DI Richie Stewart. It should be a quick case, but the longer George is on the island, the more questions she has regarding its people, its past, and its hybrid faith built with Christianity and paganism.

Though this was a slow suspense, I found myself immersed and engaged the entire time. McCluskey did a wonderful job creating a setting that was at once eerie and grounding. For the most part, this checks the boxes of your typical mystery thriller set in an isolated location with phycological elements built on tradition and superstition. As a lover of this genre, I appreciated the expectations being met and executed.

But this book went a step beyond. Secondary characters who begin as archetypes to this setting get furthered fleshed out until they are individual and independent to expectations. The intwining of pagan traditions and folklore with Christian practices created a hybrid religion that influenced the motivations of certain characters in a way that made them unpredictable. Not all of the islanders are staunch traditionalists, providing tension between the people of Eilean.

George was strong-willed, determined, and blunt. You get what you see. I loved that she was allowed to be all of these things without some lengthy explanation of how this set her apart from other women. I tend to see that in stories, as though an explanation is needed, and here, it’s simply a fact. I also was relieved that there was no intimate relationship between George and Ritchie. It was a mentor/mentee partnership that functioned like family in moments. I enjoyed the two of them as a pair, and how they offset the rest of the cast.

There is a three-fold mystery in here, with us slowly uncovering the truth to George’s past incident while on the job, the vanishing of three islanders in the early 1900s, and the present-day suicide. I could have done without the mystery around George’s fall. It was important to her character development, sure, but it didn’t require any setup. I would have preferred to have known about her incident earlier because I think I would have connected with her character sooner if I understood what personal obstacle she was working to overcome.

The ending of the novel wrapped things up almost too tidy and neat, since our two main antagonists take the life of the other. Despite this, I enjoyed that the islanders left were all caught in this suspended moral greyness that made them neither good nor evil, but rather, pawns. And I also liked that there was logic to their way of life. A man is beating his wife and kid? The islanders exterminate him to keep both his household, and the rest of the locals, safe. It’s a slippery slope, and it hinges on every person involved being neutral good. Which, as we saw, wasn’t the case.

Overall, this debut was a well-plotted, atmospheric mystery with a unique cast and a fascinating play on faith and folklore. The beginning is a bit slow, but I’m a fan of that if the trade-off is a compelling setting that evokes the senses and creates immersive imagery. I’m looking forward to more McCluskey!