Excerpt from Coffin Road by Peter May, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

It takes an enormous effort of will to wade through the sand and the spiky beach grass that binds the dunes, staggering up the narrow path that leads between them to the road. Momentarily sheltered from the constant, battering wind, I lift my head to see a woman coming along the road toward me.

She is elderly. Steel-gray hair blown back in waves from a bony face, skin stretched tight and shiny over bold features. She is wearing a parka, hood down, and black trousers that gather over pink trainers. A tiny yapping dog dances around her feet, little legs working hard to keep up, to match her longer strides.

When she sees me she stops suddenly, and I can see the shock on her face. And I panic, almost immediately overwhelmed by the fear of whatever it is that lies beyond the black veil of unremembered history. As she approaches, hurrying now, concerned, I wonder what I can possibly say to her when I have no sense of 4 Peter May who or where I am, or how I got here. But she rescues me from the need to find words.

"Oh my God, Mr. Maclean, what on earth has happened to you?" So that's who I am. Maclean. She knows me. I am suffused by a momentary sense of relief. But nothing comes back. And I hear my own voice for the first time, thin and hoarse and almost inaudible, even to myself. "I had an accident with the boat." The words are no sooner out of my mouth than I find myself wondering if I even have a boat. But she shows no surprise.

She takes my arm to steer me along the road. "For heaven's sake, man, you'll catch your death. I'll walk you to the cottage." Her yappy little dog nearly trips me up, running around between my feet, jumping at my legs. She shouts at it and it pays her not the least attention. I can hear her talking, words tumbling from her mouth, but I have lost concentration, and she might be speaking Russian for all that I understand.

We pass the gate to the cemetery, and from this slightly elevated position I have a view of the beach where the incoming tide dumped me. It is truly enormous, curling, shallow fingers of turquoise lying between silver banks that curve away to hills that undulate in cutout silhouette to the south. The sky is more broken now, the light sharp and clear, clouds painted against blue in breathless brushstrokes of white and gray and pewter. Moving fast in the wind to cast racing shadows on the sand below.

Beyond the cemetery we stop at a strip of tarmac that descends between crooked fence posts, across a cattle grid, to a single-story cottage that stands proud among the dunes, looking out across the sands. A shaped and polished panel of wood, fixed between fence posts, has Dune Cottage scorched into it in black letters.

"Do you want me to come in with you?" I hear her say.

"No, I'm fine, thank you so much." But I know that I am far from fine. The cold is so deep inside me that I understand if I stop shivering I could fall into a sleep from which I might never wake. And I stagger off down the path, aware of her watching me as I go. I don't look back. Beyond a tubular farm gate, a path leads away to an agricultural shed of some kind, and at the foot of the drive, a garden shed on a concrete base stands opposite the door of the cottage, which is set into its gable end.

A white Highland pony feeding on thin grass beyond the fence lifts its head and also watches, curious, as I fumble in wet pockets for my keys. If this is my cottage surely I must have keys for it? But I can't find any, and try the handle. The door is not locked, and as it opens I am almost knocked from my feet by a chocolate Labrador, barking and snorting excitedly, eyes wide and smiling, paws up on my chest, tongue slashing at my face.

And then he is gone. Through the gate and haring away across the dunes. I call after him. "Bran! Bran!" I hear my own voice, as if it belongs to someone else, and realize with a sudden stab of hope that I know my dog's name. Perhaps the memory of everything else is just a whisper away.

Excerpted from Coffin Road by Peter May. Copyright © 2016 by Peter May. Excerpted by permission of Quercus. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.