The Blackhouse (Lewis Trilogy, #1)

Nov 01, 2012 Anna rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery-thriller, read-in-2012

With its ‘evil lies within’ tag on the cover and ‘the hunter becomes the hunted’ in the blurb, this book sounded right up my street, and I loved the beginning of it. The creepy remote Scottish island setting, early gruesome murder and gorily detailed post mortem reminded me of the excellent Written in Bone by Simon Beckett, and I was excited to have found another great mystery/thriller author.

Sadly though, he peaked at this point. The rest of the book fizzled out into a nothingness with far too...more

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Jun 25, 2012 Janet rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012, egalley, mystery-thriller, 2012-libfavs

If you like mysteries set in remote locations in the United Kingdom, brooding weather, a tortured detective, a hostile boss, family secrets and some gritty forensic scenes, then, like me, you'll love this book.

The remote location is the Isle of Lewis in the Scottish Hebrides and the weather is obligingly nasty. Fin Macleod was born and raised on the island, but left as soon as he could and has returned only once in eighteen years, for a family funeral. But now he's been assigned to work a murder...more If you like mysteries set in remote locations in the United Kingdom, brooding weather, a tortured detective, a hostile boss, family secrets and some gritty forensic scenes, then, like me, you'll love this book.

The remote location is the Isle of Lewis in the Scottish Hebrides and the weather is obligingly nasty. Fin Macleod was born and raised on the island, but left as soon as he could and has returned only once in eighteen years, for a family funeral. But now he's been assigned to work a murder case in Lewis that may be connected to an unsolved case in Edinburgh, where he is a police detective. Unhappy with his assignment, Fin has to deal with the resentment of the detective in charge of the case and the strong feelings his return stirs up among the islanders and within himself.

As Fin investigates he is reminded of incidents from his childhood, many of them painful. Peter May makes an interesting choice in structuring the novel. Fin’s childhood memories are told in the first person; the sections of the book dealing with the murder investigation are told in the third. The reason for this unusual (to me, anyway) shift becomes clear at the climax of the story, which I don’t want to spoil by going into too much detail. Suffice to say it involves a charged confrontation in a physically dangerous setting where motives become apparent and the landscape reflects the turmoil of all the emotions laid bare.

I liked the character of Fin Macleod and was largely happy with the plotting (it felt a little rushed at the end, but that may have been because I was turning the pages so fast). I especially recommend this book for its fine use of setting and atmosphere. The island of Lewis is described beautifully and I saw the people, the streets, the blackhouses and the land. The scenes depicting an ancient Lewis custom involving twelve men braving the sea to hunt birds on a remote island are particularly gripping.

The Blackhouse did not have an easy road to publication. It was rejected by British publishers before a French publisher read it, loved it, translated it, and released it to acclaim in France. Only then was it published in England. You can hear the full story from the author at www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjbgVf5Hwno.

This is the first book in a trilogy. I can’t wait to read the second and take a return trip to the Isle of Lewis.

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Apr 13, 2012 Stuart Goodwin rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Having finished a rather weighty feminist tome I felt the need for something lighter, pacier and so turned to the Black House. I discovered this book in a Charity Shop in Lichfield and bought it mainly because of the location, the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides. You see, I have worked as a Mountain Guide for Walkabout Scotland on and off since 2006, walking, or working on, many of the Isles including Skye, Mull and Iona. Lewis I have not been to so the book was meant to plug the gap. Howeve...more Having finished a rather weighty feminist tome I felt the need for something lighter, pacier and so turned to the Black House. I discovered this book in a Charity Shop in Lichfield and bought it mainly because of the location, the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides. You see, I have worked as a Mountain Guide for Walkabout Scotland on and off since 2006, walking, or working on, many of the Isles including Skye, Mull and Iona. Lewis I have not been to so the book was meant to plug the gap. However in launching into it I was delighted to find that the investigation of Detective Fin Macleod into a brutal and ritualistic murder did so much more than plug the gaps in my geographical knowledge, it ignited my interest and kept me page-turning into the early hours. Of course as a work of Crime Fiction it bears many of the cliches of that genre, the grizzled detective with a troubled past, the fire and brimstone preacher and his hard-drinking son, the viciously articulate pathologist 'the Professor' and various lags and slags from Scottish Island life and yet it transcends the genre by creating a story that glides shark-like through pellucid waters and a central character we actually care for. Over twenty, fast-moving chapters, that move between Macleod's troubled past and his equally troubled present, Peter May keeps you hooked, exploring ever darkening themes of grief, revenge and the loss of innocence in a fallen world. Particularly impressive is Chapter 11 which deals with an ill-fated trip that a group of the Lewis Islanders, including Fin and his childhood friend Artair, take to the nearby island of An Sgeir. Here they hunt gannet chicks for their meat, a local delicacy, and here tragedy unfolds, a tragedy which will only find resolution in a haunting and powerful present-day climax. As I'd hoped the book maintained its momentum and held my interest to the last word, so much so that I immediately ordered the sequel, The Lewis Man, to follow the blighted life and times of Detective Fin Macleod. For all lovers of Crime Fiction this is a must! (less)

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Apr 13, 2013 Ipsith rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

What a truly fantastic book this is! Set on the Isle of Lewis, in and around Stornoway, Ness and Barvas, THE BLACKHOUSE is the winner of the "Prix des Lectuers" prize at the Le Havre festival of crime writing and is the first in a trilogy about a Lewis-born, Edinburgh-based, detective, Fin MacLeod. If the next two books are even a tiny bit as good as this one, then the whole set will be a truly delightful feast for the soul. The nature of the story gets into your mind and won't leave you alone....more What a truly fantastic book this is! Set on the Isle of Lewis, in and around Stornoway, Ness and Barvas, THE BLACKHOUSE is the winner of the "Prix des Lectuers" prize at the Le Havre festival of crime writing and is the first in a trilogy about a Lewis-born, Edinburgh-based, detective, Fin MacLeod. If the next two books are even a tiny bit as good as this one, then the whole set will be a truly delightful feast for the soul. The nature of the story gets into your mind and won't leave you alone. It haunts you, taunting you to put down what you are doing and carry on with the story. If, your ancestors come from Barvas, then you have even more of a reason to be gripped by the story, and be left exhausted at the end.

Fin is struggling to come to terms with life, after the death of his young son in a hit and run accident. When a virtually identical murder to that he is currently investigating in Edinburgh takes place in Stornoway, he is dispatched to see if there is a connection between the two. Glad to escape from the nightmare of his failing marriage, Fin is confronted by memories of a past that he has tried so hard to escape from. He meets old friends, reignites a few old feuds and comes face to face with his first love. Shocked by the way life on the island has changed so very little, he attempts to get to the bottom of this latest crime and is stunned by the lies and deceit that he unravels in this, seemingly God-fearing, community on the way.

The beautifully rich vocabulary used by May in this book transport you to the island. You can hear the screaming of the gulls, taste the freshness of the illegally acquired salmon and smell the saltiness of the sea. Above all, you can sense the hopelessness of a community made up of people that are jealous of Fin, yet angry that he left them, and totally despairing over the way their lives have ended up being the same as those of their parents before them.

Peter May is another excellent Scottish crime writer. I suggest you get your hands on a copy of this book as soon as possible. You won't be disappointed.(less)

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Dec 08, 2012 Cooper Renner rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Very well-done and thoughtfully constructed mystery. I generally dislike mysteries which spend too much time with the "private" lives of their characters, and found myself somewhat champing at the bit with this one as well, as chapters alternated the detective's past and present. But the procedure is justified here, not simply for "literary reasons" but also for the story itself. And May's setting--the Hebridean Isle of Lewis--is quite a foreign place to most of us, a startling introduction to a...more

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Apr 24, 2011 Sarah rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: scotland

Better than expected. Quite dark, quite true to Lewis (ploddingly so in some parts), quite a rollicking story and I'm intrigued enough to want to read the next one.

Also, first book I've read in its entirety on my tiny kindle-for-android, and that went well.

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Apr 30, 2013 Marsha rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery

Peter May set this mystery, the first in a trilogy, on the Isle of Lewis in the Scottish Outer Hebrides. Like Anne Cleeves' Shetland Island Quartet, the location is its own character in the book. The main character, Fin McLeod, a cop in Edinburgh, is brought back to Lewis, where he grew up, to investigate links between an Edinburgh murder and a murder on Lewis with a similar MO. Coming to the island of his birth brings back mostly unhappy memories that Fin must cope with; old friends who seem di...more

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Apr 29, 2013 Sallie rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I love Tana French and The Black House by Peter May came recommended as something a French fan would like. I must say is started well and there was enough to hook me in straight away BUT and this is what had me gritting my teeth for the mid-section of the book: the alternating present & backstory sections with their associated flips from third to first person narrative; an interesting device but I'm early not sure it worked - after a while it just grated. The back story sections to be honest...more

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Mar 27, 2013 Carole Barrowman rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: dark-deadly

I've spent a great deal of time in the past two weeks in bookstores across the U.K. In an Edinburgh bookstore, I picked up Peter May's "The Blackhouse" (SilverOak, $24.95), the first in a trilogy set on the Isle of Lewis, "a brooding landscape" on the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. As I flipped through its pages an elderly man standing near me said, "That's better than butter." I bought it immediately.

Edinburgh detective Fin Macleod is engulfed in grief over the death of his son, but for his superi...more

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Mar 17, 2013 Nigel Bird rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The Black House (US) is, in the main, set on the Isle of Lewis. It’s a harsh landscape with a community culture that is tight and out of the ordinary.

DI Inspector Fin MacLeod is sent to investigate the murder which opens the novel because of possible connections to an earlier case in Edinburgh. For MacLeod this means returning to the childhood home from which he escaped at the first opportunity.

During the investigation, MacLeod revisits links to his past in the form of people and places. As he d...more

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Mar 13, 2013 Lisa Lilly rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

On return to work after his son's death, Detective Fin Macleod is sent to investigates a brutal and possibly ritualistic murder on the Scottish Island where he grew up. His commanding officer sends him because the murder is similar to one Fin worked on in Edinburgh, and his familiarity with the island and its people is seen as a plus. HIs past, though, and the need to interact with people he once loved, forces Fin not only to attempt to solve the mystery, but to deal with long-buried issues and...more

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Feb 22, 2013 Shelley Fearn rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery-suspense

I was hooked at the opening scene of the novel. A man is murdered and eviscerated on Isle of Lewis in the outer Hebrides. Detective Fin MacLeod is brought in as a consultant after working a very similar and unsolved murder in Edinburgh. Raised on Lewis, MacLeod is expected to have some connections that will facilitate the investigation. His insight into the island and its citizens quickly becomes more of a hindrance than a help in the investigation as he also is dealing with events from his past...more

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Feb 04, 2013 Elizabeth rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mysteries, scotland

Detective Inspector Fin MacLeod of the Edinburgh police is at a low point in his life. He is suffering from depression for multiple reasons when his bosses called him in and tell him it's time to shape up or ship out in a manner of speaking. The case they give him will sent him back to the Isle of Lewis which is part of the archipelago of the Outer Hebrides. He left there eighteen years ago returning once only for the funeral of the aunt he lived with for several years. He had never looked back...more

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Jan 04, 2013 Dorian rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Uneven. The middle part of the book, about life on the Scottish island of Lewis is terrific, vivid and utterly compelling. The best bit is a long set piece describing the annual hunt for guga, fledgling gannets, 2000 of which are hunted by hand each year on a remote, uninhabitable spit of an island. The frame around this section, about a murder investigation, is only middling. The book centers on a police inspector who grew up on the island and only returns to solve a murder that is described wi...more

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Dec 04, 2012 Bev rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: action-adventure-shelf

The book concerns a police detective Finn, based in Edinburgh.He was born on the Isle of Lewis but left at age 18 to go to Uni in Glasgow. At the beginning of the story he has just lost his 8 year old son and gets posted to Lewis to investigate a murder.

Upon his arrival he begins to go over his past growing up as an orphan and we learn about his friends and past loves.

The writing is descriptive and beautiful. Lewis is portrayed through the changing wind and coloured landscapes. The characters ar...more

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Nov 08, 2012 Peter Ray rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

At first I was a little dubious. Unsure that this was a book for me. I'd picked it up on a whim and started to read it after searching through my ever expanding stack of "unread books".
I stuck with it and was rewarded with a book that satisfied my current desire for a relatively "easy" read.
I am now rather looking forward to reading the other two of Peter May's "Lewis Trilogy".
I wouldn't say Mr May captures a sense of place as successfully as many other authors I've read, he does however manage...more

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Oct 03, 2012 Elizabeth rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: listened-as-audiobook

I can't remember exactly how I selected this audiobook. I think I was looking for something dark but quite fast and easy. I thought a Scottish crime novel might do the trick. And its ratings and reviews seemed quite good.

This novel was not my cup of tea. At all. I found the writing self-conscious. The narrative constantly dropped obvious hints to forthcoming developments. It was packed, packed, packed with heavy similes. I never have an issue with not liking protagonists, but unfortunately in th...more

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Aug 09, 2012 Ally Atherton rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 52-books-in-52-weeks

The quiet and remote Isle of Lewis in Scotland is disturbed when a man is found hanging by his neck on the rafters of an old boatshed. Detective Inspector Fin Macleod is sent from Edinburgh to investigate and finds himself in a private battle not only with an unknown killer but also with himself.His past and present begin to unravel and he finds that this tiny island has more than a few skeletons in its closet.

I can't believe this book has been sitting on my 'To Be Read' pile since March, I gues...more

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Jul 22, 2012 Bibliophile rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I suppose it's silly to expect a crime novel to be cheerful and upbeat, but nevertheless I'm always a bit surprised when starting on a murder mystery hoping to be entertained, only to lose my will to live. Well, almost. The crime writers of Great Britain lay it on thick with the social realism. This book, by Peter May, made me never to want to go anywhere near Scotland and the bleak Isle of Lewis.

Edinburgh cop Fin Macleod is sent to Lewis to investigate a murder that may be connected to a killi...more

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Jul 12, 2012 Sophie rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

To start with I was really enjoying this, and to be fair, I would still recommend giving it a go as the author creates a wonderful atmosphere and evokes a life in a Scottish Island at once of our time and yet not. It's packed full of the sort of detail that brings a place to life, both attractive and claustrophobic, and the story builds to a fantastic climax.
My only problem with it, and I'll try and set this out without spoilers, is that there is a massive piece of the plot which is only hinted...more

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Jul 11, 2012 Rena Ruadh rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book was amazing and I literally could not put it down. A friend of mine made me aware of Peter May's books and I downloaded the first two onto my Kindle.

What makes this book so outstandingly good?

First, the writing style is tense, gripping. We are introduced to the main character, Fin MacLeod, after he just suffered a tragedy in his life. He is forced to return to Lewis, where he came from originally. The brilliance of the book lies in the flashbacks narrated in the first person where th...more

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Jul 01, 2012 Judith Lewis rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I've not been sure how to rate this. On the one hand I was gripped by the story, kept wondering where it was going to go next and what was going to happen to the characters. On the other, I felt that it was poorly written, full of clichés and that there were aspects to the book that should have been firmly dealt with by editors.

So, starting with the weaknesses first: [this isn't really a spoiler as it happens at the beginning of the book] there was no necessity at all to inflict the death of a...more I've not been sure how to rate this. On the one hand I was gripped by the story, kept wondering where it was going to go next and what was going to happen to the characters. On the other, I felt that it was poorly written, full of clichés and that there were aspects to the book that should have been firmly dealt with by editors.

So, starting with the weaknesses first: [this isn't really a spoiler as it happens at the beginning of the book] there was no necessity at all to inflict the death of a child on Fin. But, even more so, for that death to have occurred only a month before the beginning of the story was utterly unconvincing. One never had a sense of grief in Fin and the attitude of his boss in telling him he should be over it so soon was totally unrealistic. I also felt that the way he portrayed the young Fin, Artair and Marsali didn't work. Not in terms of their flirting or the way they wandered around the island on their own, which has been mentioned in other reviews, but their vocabulary and the content of their thoughts. He was much more convincing once the characters got to their teens. And I did think that there was rather a surfeit of tragedy in Fin's life. Perhaps the author felt that some of it was necessary so that other things that happened to Fin would be convincing because there was no one he could tell about what had happened to him.

On the plus side - I really enjoyed the evocation of life on Lewis. I chose to download this audio book because of my experience of holidays on the Outer Hebrides, and there was a real authentic tone to the book. I have no idea whether the author had ever been involved himself with guga hunting, but if he had not, I am sure he must have spoken at length to someone who had. I also wanted to know what happened to the main characters. The movement between past and present worked better than in many books and the change between first and third person narration worked well. I thought it was a sign of maturity in the writer that very few of the characters, if any, were unambiguously bad or good and that all had degrees of complexity in them. And few authors deal well with repressed memories - Peter May managed it better than most. But the final unravelling of the past could, perhaps, have been fleshed out a little more and other parts of the book wouldn't have suffered from being condensed to some extent.

In summary - a good story with a good plot and characters, but with unnecessary elements that an editor should have picked up on. I will be reading the next 2 books in the trilogy.(less)

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Jun 23, 2012 Rob Kitchin rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The Black House is written in expressive prose that’s very easy on the eye. The sense of place, the characterization, and the close community relations are very well done, placing the reader into the landscape and society of Lewis. The telling alternates between the present, told in the third person, and flash backs to Macleod’s childhood, told in the present tense. It’s a plot device that works well, providing vital contextual back story. Unfortunately, it is also over elaborated and it would h...more

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Apr 13, 2012 Hannah rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2012

This book didn’t get off to the best start with me, so would have needed to do a lot to win me over – and it didn’t seem to even try! Why was I annoyed? Far too cliché (both in books and TV/Film) to have a Police Detective with a recent family tragedy sent on a difficult case by an unsupportive boss. Don’t even get me started on the myriad of other clichéd characters and plot devices.

Secondly it doesn’t really feel like a crime/murder book, sure you can just about label it as a thriller but only...more This book didn’t get off to the best start with me, so would have needed to do a lot to win me over – and it didn’t seem to even try! Why was I annoyed? Far too cliché (both in books and TV/Film) to have a Police Detective with a recent family tragedy sent on a difficult case by an unsupportive boss. Don’t even get me started on the myriad of other clichéd characters and plot devices.

Secondly it doesn’t really feel like a crime/murder book, sure you can just about label it as a thriller but only just. The reader can assume from the beginning that all the delving back into Fin’s past will eventually make sense at the end, but all the same I dislike that over 90% off this book is about Fin’s childhood and not about the murder case directly. There feels to be a massive separation - where it could be two books stuck together with one or two connecting sentences. It basically comes across as wanting to write a book about Fin but also wanting to use the idea of a police detective investigating a murder and how at the last minute to combine it into one book. Actually what investigation of a murder?! At the end of the book everyone seems to have stopped bothering about the dead person. Wasn't that the point of the book ... no obviously not(!).

Thirdly I do not like the character of Fin at all, it is beyond believable all the bad things that have happened in his past so I found it impossible to connect with him at all. These nasty past events do not excuse or even explain Fin's personality - I can only see him as a nasty apathetic boy/young man – and nothing in the writing gives him any redeemable qualities.

I also dislike the affronting gore at the beginning of the book relating to the post mortem. It is frankly unnecessary to be that graphic [rarely to this degree by other, much better, writers] and is a complete contradiction to the slowness and vagueness of the remainder of the book.

Finally the ending is beyond rubbish, an amalgamation of a million and one bad-to-average film plots. Leaves me questioning if the author even wants their reader to enjoy the book, or they just wrote if for their own gratification.

Sorry to rant so but I really wanted to like this book, because of its setting and having read some good regional detective books recently but to me this book was dreadful. I will not be reading any more of the series.
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Feb 14, 2012 Alison Campbell rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The Black House by Peter May, is a wonderful descriptive novel set on the Isle of Lewis, and the first in the trilogy, of Lewis born and bred, Edinburgh based, detective Fin MacLeod.

Fin is struggling to come to terms of the sudden death of his young son, when a similar murder than the one he's currently investigating in Edinburgh, is committed on the Isle of Lewis
and Fin is given the opportunity to go back to his roots, and seek similarities between the two cases.

The island life dredges up memor...more

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Oct 11, 2012 Marguerite Kaye added it · review of another edition

My mother's family are from Port of Ness in Lewis, which is where this book is set. In fact one of her relatives actually features (under an alias) in this story. I grew up with her stories of Guga hunts, black houses, boat-building and life on this island. My maternal grandmother, who was raised there, first introduced me to selkies and mermaids. I've even set one of my own short stories there - The Highlander and the Sea Siren. So I was really keen to read this book.

But sadly, it just didn't...more My mother's family are from Port of Ness in Lewis, which is where this book is set. In fact one of her relatives actually features (under an alias) in this story. I grew up with her stories of Guga hunts, black houses, boat-building and life on this island. My maternal grandmother, who was raised there, first introduced me to selkies and mermaids. I've even set one of my own short stories there - The Highlander and the Sea Siren. So I was really keen to read this book.

But sadly, it just didn't work for me. I can see from all the other ratings that it's worked really well for most readers, which is what made me persist with it, but I am at a loss. Once again, it comes down to the main protagonist. Finn, ex-islander with bad history and tragic recent past, returns to the island to investigate what might be a copy-cat crime. He has all the hallmarks of the kind of scarred cop that I love, but for me it felt like they'd just been pasted on like wallpaper. I don't even know what Fin looks like, though we're told time and again how attractive he is. Right at the start of the book, he up-sticks and leaves his grieving wife just four weeks after their son has been killed in an accident. They're marriage, never good, has become an empty shell since their son's death. Fin's parting thoughts are that it's probably as well, when she threatens not to be there on his return. And he never once calls her. Not once. Barely thinks of her. Such seflishness took my breath away and totally tainted him from the beginning.

Next thing was the detail. I felt like this book could have easily lost about a quarter of its word count. Port of Ness is a beautiful place, but honestly, I found the almost obsessionally detailed way in which it was described made it sound tedious beyond belief. Street names, step-by-step journeyes, and even the massive amount of uneccessary detail with which the autopsy was described, just made me want to flick through quickly. The guga hunt too, while fascinating, was just done to death.

Next thing that really didn't work for me was the jumping back in time to Finn's childhood. This was told in the first person, but doing so meant that it attributed to a child of 5, 9, 13 or whatever, the analyitical skills of an adult. Five-year-olds don't think about why other children might say or do things, they don't understand the concept of falling in love, or jealousy, they just don't. And the parallels which were drawn in these sections between past and present were very heavy-handed.

Finally, there was the crime itself. Hardly any of the book was dedicated to investigation, and the actual denouement was unbelievable in the extreme. This was billed as a crime story, but it wasn't - or at least it wasn't for me. Yes, I guessed the murderer, but what's the satisfaction in that when you have no way at all of actually understanding his motivation - there were no clues, nothing, all was 'revealed' at the end. It's a personal thing, but I hate that kind of mystery.

I didn't get on with this book. but I am very much an exception. Maybe I know too much about Port of Ness already to find this version of it interesting. Maybe my expectations were all wrong and I was just disappointed. I'm passing my copy to my mother, whose experience of the place is very much first-hand. It will be interesting to hear what she thinks. (less)

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Jul 15, 2012 Lianne rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: crime

Darkly atmospheric, with a twist

After a slow start, this was a really enjoyable, and very gripping book that had me staying up late to try and finish it, with the bonus of an unexpected twist near the end.

The slow start is due to the story switching from Detective Fin Macleod in present day investigating a murder, to him growing up as a child on Lewis, and the respective switch from third to first person this entails. However, once you get used to that and get into the story, it really is an exc...more

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Mar 29, 2012 Furny rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I really have mixed opinions about this book and my real score would be 3.5!.
On the one hand I loved the descriptions of the beauty of the rugged Isle Of Lewis and how the closeness of a community living on a Island where portrayed, information about the Guga hunt tradition and the use of gaelic language.
But on the other hand I got annoyed with the switching between past and present, how the character could so easily walk out on his wife at the beginning and not have a second thought through th...more

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Apr 11, 2013 Annette rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Summary:
Edinburgh, Scotland Detective Fin MacLeod is sent to The Outer Hebrides---Isle of Lewis. The Isle of Lewis is located northwest of the Isle of Skye, and both are off the west coast of Scotland. It is always windy on the Isle of Lewis.

"That tireless assault blowing in across three thousand miles of Atlantic. Beyond the shelter of Stornoway harbour there was barely a tree on the island."

There's been a murder in the village of Crobost. Ironically Crobost is the town of Fin's birth. The cr...more Summary:
Edinburgh, Scotland Detective Fin MacLeod is sent to The Outer Hebrides---Isle of Lewis. The Isle of Lewis is located northwest of the Isle of Skye, and both are off the west coast of Scotland. It is always windy on the Isle of Lewis.

"That tireless assault blowing in across three thousand miles of Atlantic. Beyond the shelter of Stornoway harbour there was barely a tree on the island."

There's been a murder in the village of Crobost. Ironically Crobost is the town of Fin's birth. The craggy Gaelic people will not all be pleased with his return, many will be shocked. He's been gone 18 years. People change. Yet, life on Isle of Lewis has changed little.
During the investigation Fin will have to face the events from his past. No longer can he ignore them.

My Thoughts:
I loved this story! Let me say that again. I love this story! I want to back up and re-read it. Instead I think I'll look for more books from this author.
What I loved about this story:

The authors writing style is fluid, smooth, relaxing. I settled back comfortably in my reading chair from the first page until the last. Although the fluid writing style is polar from the storyline and characters; with both a murder to solve and painful unresolved memories from the past---Fin's character as well as all the other characters are dark and dreary and they drape heavily upon each page.
The Isle of Lewis came alive for me in my mind. I could easily picture the wind-swept coast, the churning pounding white foam against the rugged rocks, the hard-working people, Gaelic demeanor and language, and the village of Crobust trying hard to become adaptable to modern times.
The story tied-in and finished well. I was not completely surprised by the chain of events, but was surprised by who was the murderer, as well as the finality.

I want to point out the main character Fin MacLeod is antagonistic towards Christian's. Reading between the lines so to speak. I believe his lack of belief was because of his atheist aunt, tragedy from his childhood, tragedy from his current life, a longing for something more, and unresolved buried memories. At no point was I put-off by his candor. Instead I was amazed at his transparency. Fin is a character that is real, not a hero, but a real man with a multi-faceted personality, and with grim memories, like all of us.
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Jan 05, 2013 Patricia rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The book is described as a murder mystery but it is so much more than that. Detecive Fin McCleod is sent back to the island in the Hebrides where he grew up,to contribute to solving a murder because it is similar to one he is working on.He is expected to use his local knowledge of a place he left behind 18 years before. His solving the mystery is laced through his memories of the past.Some of them come easily and some have to be coaxed.His encounters with people he grew up with and left behind r...more

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The Blackhouse (Lewis Trilogy #1)

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