Storm Bound

A stranger arrives on the last ferry before the storm.

He is a quiet Englishman with walking gear, careful questions, and a room above the pub. Then the weather closes over Carraig Dubh. No ferry. No helicopter. No way on or off the island for eleven days.

On the fourth morning, the stranger is found dead at the foot of the lighthouse stairs. Everything suggests a fall, except for one detail Róise Gallagher cannot ignore: the torch in his hand was never switched on. Nobody climbs dark lighthouse stairs in a gale with a torch left off.

With Detective Sergeant Ward stranded on the mainland and no forensics coming, Róise has only the island itself: Gallagher's stock records, Manus Boyle's lighthouse knowledge, and a coded notebook partly destroyed in a stove.

The dead man had been asking about November 1974 and the loss of Róise's father at sea. Solving the present murder leaves her with an older question that Carraig Dubh has avoided for half a century.