Equinox

by Ruth Aylett, Greg Michaelson

A survey vessel trawls up a man's body in the Outer Hebrides and ship's engineer Helen finds a compelling green stone in his pocket. On Rannoch Moor, her cousin Malcolm, a local ranger, is visited by a strange woman. She goes missing, and he too finds a green stone. The cousins have stumbled upon a multi-faceted conspiracy involving the high-tech company Fundamantal Forces who are promising limitless green energy from under the moor. It's soon clear that deeper, perhaps darker forces are at play. Helen and Malcolm have twelve days to learn to cooperate, piece the mystery together, and save the multiverse.

Equinox brings together procedural thriller, Scottish myth, many-worlds science and family drama. Set in the present-day Scottish Highlands and Islands it has the verve and imagination of Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London, melding themes of trust, loyalty and memory.

264 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 1, 2023

Reviews

[M-T Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

A body, its identity unverified, is hauled from the seas around the outer Hebrides, a woman unaccountably disappears on a Scottish moorland. Stones with a strange attraction, found on, or close to, the dead man and the vanished woman, fall into the possession of cousins Helen and Malcolm. Are the stones the key to discovering what is really going on? A company, ostensibly constructed to develop infinite source of energy, cats, megaliths, friends and neighbours, the police - all are more than they appear to be. Yet nothing is improbable as science and history mingle with myth and witchcraft.
Characters engage from the start, drawn with humour and sympathy as lives are changed.
The structure of the narrative is well paced, offering alternating perspectives between Malcolm and Helen to deliver a thoroughly enjoyable roller-coaster ride as the story crosses timelines and races toward the Equinox. Recommended.