This book was published in 1956. It's crime fiction but it's very different from the classic crime novels that are typical of the time. It is more a story of someone caught up in the circumstances surrounding a murder and the investigation of it than a classic detective story.
The protagonist is a young woman called Gianetta Drury, who works as a fashion model in London. The book begins with her wanting to take a break and go on vacation. She decides to go to the Isle of Skye - to the Camasunary hotel, which is located in a beautiful spot, surrounded by hills and lakes, perfect for fishing and climbing. Stewart does a marvellous job of describing the place and setting the scene.
Gianetta arrives at the hotel and finds her fellow guests to be a fairly typical smattering of upper-class British folk...aristocrats, ex- military men and their wives, a famous actress, a couple of writers and a few dedicated mountaineers.
A few hours after getting there, she learns that a young woman from a local village was murdered somewhat gruesomely just a few days ago. There's a police investigation on, and the guests at the hotel are among the suspects.
She's a bit spooked when she hears about the murder, and she's unpleasantly surprised when she realises that one of the guests is her ex-husband. They had a contentious split four years ago and she hasn't seen him since. The last thing she needs is to run into him when she's on vacation.
This storyline is part of the interpersonal drama among the guests, there's a couple who's struggling to get along, there's a bit of infidelity, a case unrequited love. None of this is overdone and it adds to the interest and the intrigue of the story.
All of this is seen through Gianetta's eyes. She's a clever woman and an observant one. The murder investigation is still going on when there's another murder. Then a couple of the guests, two women, go missing. They went out to climb the hills and they never came back. There's an all-out effort to find them as the mystery gets deeper.
I was quite literally at the edge of my seat reading this book. The plot is excellent, the pacing is tight and the narrative doesn't flag for a minute. There are stunning descriptions of the landscape and the hills in particular. The writing is so vivid and evocative that I was totally sucked into the book.
I really enjoyed it.