A man washes ashore in the Outer Hebrides, the pages of his memory completely blank, while in Edinburgh a troubled teen suspects her father did not, as she was told, commit suicide. Peter May. Coffin Road. The many threads of the story play out against a landscape that May, a native Scot, renders vividly. His images capture the capricious play of light and weather across the sea and the moors, matching the surprises in his tale. Yes, the Highlands are part of the setting, too.