The Wolf Tree by Laura McCluskey is a slow burning, atmospheric island mystery that pulls you in with its unsettling religious undertones and genuinely keeps you guessing.
What It’s About
When a body is discovered on a remote island with a population of barely two hundred people, detectives DI Lennox and DI Stewart are sent in from the mainland to investigate. On an island where everyone knows everyone, and where outsiders are regarded with quiet, careful suspicion, piecing together the truth means navigating a community that would very much prefer to handle its own affairs, in its own way, guided by its own beliefs.
Laura McCluskey uses the island setting masterfully. The isolation isn’t just backdrop, it’s almost a character in itself. The landscape, the weather, the rhythms of island life, all of it is rendered with a descriptive atmospheric style that makes you genuinely feel the remoteness. You understand why the residents are the way they are. You understand why the case is as complicated as it is.
What surprised me was how much police procedural the book contains. I went in expecting a more cosy-leaning mystery, and apparently jump straight into thriller and police procedural here. If you are a fan of methodical detective, you may find The Wolf Tree familiar.
Why I Picked This Up
There are certain premises that just get me immediately. And “murder mystery on an isolated island with only 200-ish residents” is absolutely one of them. Something about the closed-world setting, the claustrophobia of it, the idea that the killer is almost certainly someone you’d pass at the local shop, makes for incredibly compelling reading. Or at least for me. Add a strong religious tension and community secrecy, and I was sold.
If you’ve seen Midnight Mass on Netflix, you’ll have a feel for the particular atmosphere I’m talking about here. That sense of tight-knit community held together by faith or tradition, and the deeply unsettling things that can fester underneath it. The Wolf Tree carries a similar energy, and I mean that as a genuine compliment.
What I Loved, and What Didn’t Quite Work
The setting and atmosphere is where McCluskey really shines. The island feels real, isolated, beautiful, and suffocating. DI Lennox and DI Stewart are a likeable pair with a believable dynamic, and what I appreciated most is that they both carry a genuine sense of justice. They’re not jaded detectives going through the motions. They care, even when the community around them makes caring difficult.
I read a lot of mysteries, and I’ve become reasonably good at guessing where they’re going. This one caught me out. The twists landed, and when the reveal came, it felt earned. This is harder to pull off than it sounds.
What didn’t quite work, I feel the middle section drags. There were a handful of chapters where I felt the story tread waters slightly, and the momentum I’d built up in the first half started to slip. Then, the ending felt a little rushed by comparison, as though the book had spent a bit too long in the middle and ran short of room to breathe at the end.
DI Stewart loses the plot slightly. And I mean that literally. There’s a point in the story where Stewart seems to shed his police instincts almost entirely, reacting to the island’s atmosphere in ways that felt out of character for an experienced detective. It nagged at me. The story is told from Lennox’s perspective, which means we don’t get enough of Stewart’s interiority to understand why he behaves the way he does.
Final Verdict
The Wolf Tree is an impressive debut that does the hard things well: the setting and the mystery holds its secrets until the end. Its weaknesses are real, but they don’t undo what McCluskey achieves here.
Pick this up if you love atmospheric setting, a thriller with a dark, slightly eerie undertone, or appreciate a mystery that doesn’t telegraph its ending. You might want to skip it if you prefer your detectives consistently sharp and in control throughout.
Rating: 4 Muse Points. Have you read The Wolf Tree? I’d love what to know what you made of DI Stewart.
About The Author
Laura McCluskey is a Melbourne-based writer, editor and actor. She created the production company Sibylline Films and co-founded Three Fates Theatre Company. The Wolf Tree is her first novel.
Get your copy of The Wolf Tree below:
