ENTRY ISLAND By Peter May Quercus, 554 pages, $26.99

Peter May, the Scottish crime novelist, is addicted to desolate islands.

Three of his recent books made up the Lewis trilogy, a passionately told story of murder and other nasty events set in the most severe of Scotland’s Outer Hebrides.

Now, for an encore, seeking a setting equally as forbidding, May has found inspiration in a group of remote islands in Canada, which wouldn’t seem at first glance a likely location for a writer from Scotland.

The islands are the Madeleines, a small, scattered chain in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

These isles, administered by Quebec, are 90 per cent French-speaking, 10 per cent English; most of the English are centred in tiny Entry Island, which is home in the novel to, among others, the local millionaire who earned his fortune in the lobster business.

It’s this rich but unlucky character who turns out to be the murder victim of the story.

The killing brings a Montreal homicide squad to the Madeleines.

The squad includes Detective Sime Mackenzie, who lugs heavy baggage with him. Severe insomnia and a marriage breakup have crippled him physically and emotionally, but most of all, he brings to the story his own grim family history in the Scottish migration to Canada.

May loves to write about the darkest episodes in Scotland’s history, and he fits plenty of these into Entry Island.

Not surprisingly, the ancient events bear a direct connection to the murder case Sime is investigating, and while the impact of the story is not so powerful as anything readers experienced in the Lewis trilogy, the new book still offers a persuasive and chilling tale of history and murder.