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The Blackhouse

(Lewis Trilogy #1)

Peter May (Goodreads Author)

4.08 · Rating details · 35,618 ratings · 3,527 reviews

A brutal killing takes place on the Isle of Lewis, Scotland: a land of harsh beauty and inhabitants of deep-rooted faith.

A MURDER
Detective Inspector Fin Macleod is sent from Edinburgh to investigate. For Lewis-born Macleod, the case represents a journey both home and into his past.

A SECRET
Something lurks within the close-knit island community. Something sinister.

A TRAP
As F ...more

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Hardcover, 386 pages

Published February 1st 2011 by Quercus Books

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Oct 15, 2017 Jeffrey Keeten rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: scotland, british-mystery

“Knew, too, that it wasn’t just Mona he wanted to run away from. It was everything. Back to a place where life had once seemed simple. A return to childhood, back to the womb. How easy it was now to ignore the fact that he had spent most of his adult life avoiding just that. Easy to forget that as a teenager nothing had seemed more important to him than leaving.”

Detective Fin Macleod is sent back to the place where he was bred, born, burnished, and raised as an orphan. A murder has happened on ...more

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Apr 20, 2016 Andrew Smith rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Having recently read and enjoyed Peter May’s stand-alone book Entry Island, I was urged by several of my Goodreads friends to seek out his Lewis Trilogy. I also recalled that a former colleague of mine – someone who hardly ever picked up a book of any description – had read this mini-series and pronounced it the ‘best thing I’ve ever read’. Ok, it might have been the only thing he ever read, but all signs seemed to be pointing in the same direction.

So I launched myself into this book with high h Having recently read and enjoyed Peter May’s stand-alone book Entry Island, I was urged by several of my Goodreads friends to seek out his Lewis Trilogy. I also recalled that a former colleague of mine – someone who hardly ever picked up a book of any description – had read this mini-series and pronounced it the ‘best thing I’ve ever read’. Ok, it might have been the only thing he ever read, but all signs seemed to be pointing in the same direction.

So I launched myself into this book with high hopes. The early sections scoped out the fact that two similar murders had occurred – one in Edinburgh and the other on the remote Isle of Lewis – and that a young(ish) copper, Fin McLeod, had been sent to Lewis to see if he could establish whether the two incidents were in any way linked. Fin, we learn, was born and brought up on Lewis and left the Hebridean Island after completing his schooling. As he meets up with the locals – many of whom remember him (it’s a small island with a population on the scale of a medium sized English town) – we start to understand more of what it must have been like for him to have lived his early years in this place, three hours north of the Scottish mainland. It has strong Calvinist traditions and the way things are done are more often than not the way things have always been done. It must have felt like a prison to a feisty, ambitious youngster such as he.

One custom that features large in the story is that of the annual trip to a forbidding rock called An Sgeir to cull two thousand young gannets, known in Gaelic as guga (a real event, I’ve subsequently learnt). The meat is considered a delicacy and each year twelve men from Lewis are chosen to complete this dangerous but revered task. They set off in a trawler to navigate some of the Atlantic’s most treacherous waters to reach this place; it’s a fifty-mile trip and it takes about eight hours. Once there, they scramble onto the rock where they will stay for up to two weeks. Actually, they’ll stay for as long as it takes to complete the job. Conditions are appalling and the task is grim beyond belief. It’s all superbly described and I really felt I was on that rock amongst the noise and smell and with the sense of death that pervades the whole thing.

So it’s a crime story but it also becomes the history of Fin’s early life as we are switched back and forth between past and present. In a strange way, the pace of life on the Island feels slow and plodding but at the same time the story races along with plenty of twists and action – a neat trick that. I quickly became totally absorbed. The characterisations are terrific and the descriptions of the island really brings it to life. The story is tied up effectively at the end and like most readers, I’d guess, I felt I’d not yet had enough of Fin or his fellow islanders. In fact, I’ve already started Lewis Man, the follow-up book, such was the power of this one. Great stuff and highly recommended. ...more

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Oct 10, 2017 Arah-Lynda rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommended to Arah-Lynda by: Andrew Smith

Shelves: i-said, paperwhite

We left on the midnight tide, diesel engines thudding as we slipped out into the bay from the relative shelter of the harbour, facing into the huge swell, waves breaking over the bow to pour in foaming rivers across the deck. It seemed no time at all until the lights of Ness were swallowed by the night as we yawed and pitched into open seas beyond the Butt of Lewis. The last thing to vanish was the comforting flash of the lighthouse on the clifftop at the Butt, and when that was gone there wa We left on the midnight tide, diesel engines thudding as we slipped out into the bay from the relative shelter of the harbour, facing into the huge swell, waves breaking over the bow to pour in foaming rivers across the deck. It seemed no time at all until the lights of Ness were swallowed by the night as we yawed and pitched into open seas beyond the Butt of Lewis. The last thing to vanish was the comforting flash of the lighthouse on the clifftop at the Butt, and when that was gone there was only the ocean. Untold stormy miles of it. If we missed the rock the next stop would be the Artic.

The rock is An Sgeir, barely a half mile long and no more than a hundred yards across, there is no soil or level land, just shit covered rock rising straight out of the sea. The men on the trawler have come for the Guga, a Gaelic name, otherwise known as Gannet. They are carrying on a tradition that can be traced back hundreds of years; once hunted for sustenance they hunt now to maintain a centuries old tradition and of course, get a taste of the Guga. They face brutal, dangerous, often lethal conditions on a narrow, shit covered rock, surrounded by the raging, roaring, north Atlantic Ocean, in order to do so.

May’s prose is fluid, seamlessly moving from past to present, as the story unfolds, so insanely rich in atmosphere, I felt a part of the group on An Sgeir, could smell the guano, feel the ocean’s fury pounding against the rock, my hands and feet numb as I clung on for dear life, amid the feathers and brouhaha of the teeming, threatened Gannet. This is a real tradition honoured by the men of the northern tip of the largest of the Western Islands of the Outer Hebrides archipelagos, to this very day. .

Fin Macleod grew up on Lewis and eighteen years ago made his first voyage to An Sgeir. In the wake of tragic circumstances surrounding that trip Fin has escaped to Edinburgh where he makes a living as a copper investigating homicides. But now he is being dispatched back to his boyhood home to investigate the potential connection in a murder disturbingly similar to an Edinburgh homicide.

So yes, this is a crime story but the real cream of this tale lay in Fin’s reflections of growing up on the Isle of Lewis and the history he left behind. History that has been buried lo these many years but still fuels Fin’s nightmares. A history from which he will no longer be able to hide.

You would be well advised to take this trip back home and in time, with Fin. I promise, you will be well rewarded with a gripping, chilling, atmospheric tale, rich in ancient Gaelic culture and history.

My sincere thanks to Andrew Smith for putting this on my radar. Woot!

4.5 crazy atmospheric stars cause, yeah it is just that good! ...more

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Sep 10, 2017 Jaline rated it it was amazing

Shelves: xx2017-completed

This novel is the first of a trilogy – the Lewis Trilogy. The Isle of Lewis is the largest island in the outer Hebrides. It is 683 square miles (1,770 square kilometres), has a population of less than 20,000, and was once part of The Norse Kingdom of Mann and the Isles.

The story within this novel is simply amazing, and beautifully written. Heart-pounding moments of man against the elements and man against man. There is a murder involved which draws our main character, CID Fin Macleod back to the ...more

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Jan 07, 2018 Paula K (on hiatus) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Literary mystery fans

Shelves: contemporary, read-in-2018, favorite-authors, crime, cultural, scotland, suspense-thriller, favorite-books, read-in-2022, mystery

The Blackhouse is the first of a trilogy written by Peter May which won The Barry Award in 2013. Set in the harsh northern region of the Isle of Lewis in Scotland, the author masterfully describes the Gaelic culture and terrain so well that you feel you are there.

Detective Inspector Fin Macleod returns to his childhood home to investigate a murder very similar to one he is working on in Edinburgh. The victim is a bully from his past that brings back many unpleasant memories some remembered and ...more

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Apr 14, 2018 Lori rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I loved seeing the island through May's eyes and Fin's memories of growing up there. The writing is excellent. The murder mystery read like an overlay of an additional story and the explanation at the end was a bit of a letdown. That being said, I ordered the sequel as soon as finished this one. Rounding up 4 stars. ...more

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Jan 03, 2019 Beverly rated it it was ok

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Aug 12, 2017 Phrynne rated it it was amazing

This book practically read itself it was so good. We nearly had no lunch today because I could not find a place in the text where I wanted to stop!
I loved all the descriptions of the Hebrides, somewhere I have not been but would love to see one day. The author manages to create the scene so well and it is a very fitting place to set this tale of mystery and murder.
The main character, Fin, has returned to the village where he spent his childhood and periodically through the story we revisit those ...more

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Nov 25, 2015 Richard Derus rated it liked it · review of another edition

Rating: 3* of five, but just barely

The Publisher Says: From acclaimed author and television dramatist Peter May comes the first book in the Lewis Trilogy--a riveting mystery series set on the Isle of Lewis in Scotland's Outer Hebrides, a formidable and forbidding world where tradition rules and people adhere to ancient ways of life. When a grisly murder occurs on the Isle of Lewis that has the hallmarks of a killing he's investigating on the mainland, Edinburgh detective and native islander Fin Rating: 3* of five, but just barely

The Publisher Says: From acclaimed author and television dramatist Peter May comes the first book in the Lewis Trilogy--a riveting mystery series set on the Isle of Lewis in Scotland's Outer Hebrides, a formidable and forbidding world where tradition rules and people adhere to ancient ways of life. When a grisly murder occurs on the Isle of Lewis that has the hallmarks of a killing he's investigating on the mainland, Edinburgh detective and native islander Fin Macleod is dispatched to see if the two deaths are connected. His return after nearly two decades not only represents a police investigation, but a voyage into his own troubled past. As Fin reconnects with the places and people of his tortured childhood, he feels the island once again asserting its grip on his psyche. And every step forward in solving the murder takes him closer to a dangerous confrontation with the tragic events of the past that shaped--and nearly destroyed--Fin's life.

The Blackhouse is a thriller of rare power and vision that explores the darkest recesses of the soul.

My Review: This was a huge, long slog of a story, alternating between Fin (the main character) as narrator of his life of unremitting grimness and misery, and third person limited, basically the camera-eye PoV that one would expect to find in a novel by a screenwriter. This made the pace slow for me as each time we shift, I have to hit the brakes or push in the clutch to shift up.

This isn't to say that the author is a bad writer, his prose is limpidly clear. But keep Google open while you're reading, since there are unexplained, untranslated Gaelic words all over the place. There are exciting sea scenes and tense moments of nailbiting stress during the islanders' unique rite of passage for males.

There are also characters who are unnecessary, flashbacks of unconscionable length and questionable necessity, and an ending that will break a decent person's heart...that has holes the size of a gannet in it. (You'll get the joke later.) If the ending is true, and I think it is true to the character and the build-up, the obliviousness of the responsible adults of the island is unconscionable and unpleasant.

Trigger warning for animal rights activists and the tenderhearted towards all gawd's creation, and for child abuse. ...more

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Mar 15, 2014 Julie rated it it was amazing

Shelves: mystery-shelf, suspense, e-book, edelweiss-review, thrillers

The Black House by Peter May is a 2011 Quercus publication. I was provided a copy of this book by the publisher and Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.

The Isle of Lewis is a place Fin Macleod thought he would never have to visit again. But, as fate would have it a murder has been committed on the Isle of Lewis that bears a remarkable similarity to a murder case Fin is working on in Edinburgh. So, he is told to he must check out this latest murder to see if the crimes could be related.

F The Black House by Peter May is a 2011 Quercus publication. I was provided a copy of this book by the publisher and Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.

The Isle of Lewis is a place Fin Macleod thought he would never have to visit again. But, as fate would have it a murder has been committed on the Isle of Lewis that bears a remarkable similarity to a murder case Fin is working on in Edinburgh. So, he is told to he must check out this latest murder to see if the crimes could be related.

Fin gets more than he ever bargained for when he returns home for the first time in many years. He encounters his first girlfriend, his best buddy, and floods of memories begin to pour out of his subconscious mind. It just so happens that the murdered man was a bully that made life miserable for Fin and his friends. Over the years the man only became an adult bully and was not a popular guy. There is no shortage of suspects, some of whom were old friends of Fin's. As the memories of childhood become more pronounced and as Fin begins to uncover numerous secrets it looks as though another murder is about to happen and Fin must race against time to prevent it.

Wow! What a well woven, brilliantly told story with an incredible climax that will leave you gasping for air. Fin is a man that is a terrible place in his life when he is assigned this case. He has just lost his only son in a terrible accident and as a result his marriage is falling apart. Being in this fragile state perhaps made it easier for all those old thoughts and feeling to come to the surface. Seeing his first love now married to his best friend when he lived on the Isle and having to interview his old school mates as a part of his job is very awkward and painful, but then a bombshell is dropped in his lap which changes Fin's perceptions of things.

The author did a wonderful job of enlightening the reader about Fin's childhood- the death of his parents , being raised by his sort of eccentric aunt, and various experiences he lived through that might have damaged most of us severely. One major shock after another unfolds until the awful, terrible truth is finally revealed. The race to save a potential victim was incredible suspense and I could hardly bear it. I was literally riveted. I couldn't stop reading this once I started it. The murder mystery and the revelations of Fin's life and all the incredible guilt and bad luck he had was drama at it's finest. Fin's low key character held a great deal of pain and sorrow but he was always in control of himself. However, he felt things much more deeply than anyone realizes because for years he has buried much of his life on the Isle in the back of his mind and has never addressed all the things that happened there. After having put the reader through so many gut wrenching emotional and suspenseful moments the author somehow manages to give the reader hope for the Fin. He does an amazing thing that I felt would go a long ways toward bringing about healing and forgiveness to those who certainly deserved it after all they endured. Very well written with characters we could relate to and feel for. I also enjoyed reading about the traditions on “ The Rock” and the purpose of the black house. The scenery and locations set the stage for tone and atmosphere of the story and it fit perfectly. I highly recommend this book to those that enjoy psychological thrillers, suspense , and mysteries. There is some strong language and emotional topics that are difficult to read, also there are passages of detailed forensics, so be aware this book does have a dark tone. This is the first book in a trilogy and I have already placed “The Lewis Man” in my queue.
This one deserves the top honor- 5 stars!!
...more

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Sep 18, 2014 Magdalena aka A Bookaholic Swede rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: read-2014

There is something alluring (at least for me) with crime novels placed on islands, especially those far up in the north, with bad weather and people that have known each other for generations. I mean it wouldn't be the same if it would be set on a Caribbean paradise, for instance, who would ever want to leave in the first place. Too idyllic, I prefer more these dark and rugged places with old secrets.

Fin Macleod (From the clan Macleod…sorry I'm a child of the 80s and I love the Highlander) retur ...more

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May 30, 2012 Brenda rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery, thriller, crime, own-read

Detective Sergeant Fin Macleod wasn’t impressed when he was told he had to go to the Isle of Lewis to investigate a grisly murder that had similarities to an Edinburgh murder he was currently investigating. Fin came from the island and hadn’t returned for eighteen years – he had no desire to return. There were too many memories –most of them bad…

With Detective Constable George Gunn as his driver and assistant while on the island, Fin found the hostile and reticent nature of the locals hadn’t cha ...more

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Oct 15, 2020 Maria Espadinha rated it really liked it

Split by Past

Detective Inspector Fin Macleod was still grieving the recent death of his 8 years old son, when he was assigned to a case of murder at the Isle of Lewis.

The island was claustrophobic and he once lived there as a kid. He had not manny happy memories from Lewis and his return to the island led him straight into a dark past. Fin felt like he was two — past and present overlapped and it was hard to cope with both!...
Can you empathize?!...

Moral of the Story:
Find yourself a compulsory h ...more

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Jun 24, 2012 Janet rated it really liked it

Shelves: mystery-thriller, 2012, 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 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.

...more

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Jul 16, 2016 Michael rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: coming-of-age, fiction, rural-life, mystery, scotland

Fin is an Edinburgh detective who returns to the Lewis Island community of his origins in the Outer Hebrides because of the similar MO of a new murder to one he is working on. A man is found hung with his bowels sliced open. It turns out that the victim was the chief bully and nemesis from his childhood. His search for suspects among his many enemies forces him to deal with many painful memories from his youth, including his own failures with his first love who is now married to his former best Fin is an Edinburgh detective who returns to the Lewis Island community of his origins in the Outer Hebrides because of the similar MO of a new murder to one he is working on. A man is found hung with his bowels sliced open. It turns out that the victim was the chief bully and nemesis from his childhood. His search for suspects among his many enemies forces him to deal with many painful memories from his youth, including his own failures with his first love who is now married to his former best friend and early competitor for her heart. Given the death of his parents as a boy and of the aunt who raised him, he has no family ties, but he finds his spirit inspired by the resilient way of life here that he left behind 17 years before.

The story is an effective vehicle for the author to portray the paradoxically rich and stark life of this remote, isolated community and the beauty of its bogs, meadows, and rocky coasts alternatingly beset by the murk of fog or fierce Atlantic storms. Harry Roolaart in his excellent review aptly tags this book an “ethno-mystery”. The tale has a focal point on the centuries’ old tradition for a dozen select community residents to brave a dangerous annual trip to a tiny rocky island of cliff nesting sites 40 miles offshore and spend two weeks harvesting and processing gannet chicks. Though they are a special food delicacy, the event serves mainly as a means of keeping alive a means to connect to a history of their people and a rite of passage for worthy youth. Fin’s own participation in this tradition as a teen turns out to include such a traumatic event that he has blanked a lot out in his memory. Now the trail to the murderer calls for him to go there alone in a terrible storm to avert another killing somehow linked to his own past.

Much of the book moves slowly as Fin unwinds his past and struggles to engage with the present. I had some disbelief over the power of decades-old grudges to drive someone to desperate action, but overall I was well engaged, and I appreciated a lot of its brilliant aspects of the tale and its environment. I have already enjoyed the second in the series, The Lewis Man, and need to track down third.

...more

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Oct 23, 2017 Terence M rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: five-stars-audio-book, all-audio-other

Audiobook - 12:45 Hours - Narrator: Steve Worsley

What a great feeling it is to finish a book and think "I really enjoyed that!".

Needless to say, I loved "The Blackhouse"; I loved the plot and storyline; I loved the descriptive writing; I loved the portrayal of the desolate and savagely beautiful Isle of Lewis in The Outer Hebrides and the harsh lives of the people who live there; and I really loved the narration by Steve Worsley.

Steve Worsley, a native of Aberdeen (an 'Aberdonian'), is an acto ...more

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Nov 16, 2018 Sandy *The world could end while I was reading and I would never notice* rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2018, audio, murder-mystery, series, family-drama, author-i-want-to-read-more-of, contemporary-fiction, scottish-noir, 5-star, detective-fiction

EXCERPT: She sees the dark shape drift out of the shadows almost at the same time she feels it. Soft and cold and heavy. She lets out an involuntary cry.

"For God's sake, Ceit!" Ulleam comes after her, frustration added now to desire and anxiety, and his feet slide away from under him, for all the world like he has stepped on ice. He lands heavily on his elbow and a pain shoots through his arm. "Shit!" The floor is wet with diesel. He feels it soaking through the seat of his trousers. It is on h ...more

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Dec 22, 2019 aPriL does feral sometimes rated it really liked it

Shelves: favorites, omg-so-exciting-couldnt-stop-readin, mysteries-potboilers-thrillers, bungee-jump-ride, macho-man

Wow! 'The Blackhouse' by Peter May is fantastic! I LOVED this noir mystery! It is the first in the Lewis trilogy, but it can be read as a standalone.

Every main character is haunted by disappointment. None of them feel they got the life they wanted. Plus, secrets, lots of secrets. It takes a shocking murder to begin cracking characters, and old animosities, open like rotten eggs....

Thirty-seven-year old Finley Macleod has been asked to return to his hometown. His parents had lived half a mile out Wow! 'The Blackhouse' by Peter May is fantastic! I LOVED this noir mystery! It is the first in the Lewis trilogy, but it can be read as a standalone.

Every main character is haunted by disappointment. None of them feel they got the life they wanted. Plus, secrets, lots of secrets. It takes a shocking murder to begin cracking characters, and old animosities, open like rotten eggs....

Thirty-seven-year old Finley Macleod has been asked to return to his hometown. His parents had lived half a mile outside a small village called Crobost, part of a community named Ness. Ness is on the extreme northern tip of the Isle of Lewis, the most northerly island in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. Finley was a child in the 1960's and 1970's, and he grew up speaking Gaelic until he started school. Because a man has been murdered in Crobost in exactly the same manner as a murder he is investigating in Edenburgh, and because Finley speaks Gaelic, he is sent to assist in the Crobost investigation.

Finley left Crobost eagerly eighteen years ago, hoping to begin a new life after graduating from Glasgow University. Instead he flunked out after his first year. Now a detective inspector, DI in the Edinburgh Police, he is eager to go back to the island - not because he is homesick, but because his eight-year-old son was killed a month ago in an accident. His wife Mona wants a divorce. And Finley is wrecked, not showing up regularly to work. So, when his boss, DCI Black, orders him to go, hinting Fin's job might be at stake if he doesn't go, he quickly packs his bag.

The man who was killed, Angus 'Angel' Macritchie, was a bully. Fin knew him well, having been beaten up by him a few times as a child. Seeing Angel's body brings back a lot of childhood memories, most of them sad or bleak. Besides the English language he was forced to learn after starting school, and the schoolyard harassments and beatings, Fin's parents had been killed in a car accident when he was eight years old. He had gone to live nearby with his mother's sister, an aunt, but she had not loved Fin. He had had a cold lonely childhood. Fin had friends, including a best friend, Artair Macinnes, and girls seemed to like Fin, especially Marsaila, who was now Artair's wife. But Fin did not remember anyone being happy with life on the island. Not anyone, except Fin's parents. He certainly was not happy.

From my reading between the lines, life on the island seems ingrown and generally full of small-minded folk, a hothouse of jealousies and conflicts - which are quickly buried by surface social conformity, especially in the more isolated 1960's and 1970's. Everybody knows everybody. The men drink too much. Plus, the weather! Strong winds and storms, no trees, only plenty of rocks and hills, only sheep and fishing as sustenance occupations. Most men were employed at a on oil-fabrication yard, including Fin's dad before he died. For kids, there was not a lot of opportunities to do things if it was not about exploring and playing harsh games on the cliffs and beaches and wild country around them when not doing chores and attending churches regularly.

This is a grim novel, gentle reader.

The one thing most of the men long for is the two-week guga harvest on an island called An Sgeir. Gentle reader, this involves wringing the necks of gannet chicks, then preparing them to eat. The locals consider the cooked birds a food delicacy and the harvest as a manly rite of passage. It was dangerous work as it involved climbing around cliffs, and sometimes bad injuries occurred. Fin had a REALLY bad thing happen - but his memory of it is shrouded, maybe blocked. He doesn't want to know...

The book has two narration timelines - Fin's childhood, which he remembers in first person "I", and the present, which is in third person "he". I did not like this change of voice! Never mind. I got over my annoyance. A little. Sort of.

Anyway.

Fin's backstory is interesting and important for the later reveals. The murder which he is investigating has everything to do with the past, so the personal history is important to read. I suspect some readers might feel the backstory slows down the action, and it does, but it is integral to solving the murder. When things begin to bust open, it starts a series of Big Exciting Events! The last chapters are thrilling! I could not put the book down!

Caution: animals are killed, violence is graphic, child abuse occurs. ...more

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Nov 13, 2018 Bam cooks the books ;-) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery, recommended-by-friend

In this first mystery in the Lewis trilogy, we are introduced to detective inspector Fin MacLeod of Edinburgh. In the midst of a personal tragedy that is tearing his marriage apart, he is given an assignment to go to the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides and investigate the grisly murder of a local resident. Why involve Fin? This murder seems to be quite similar to one that occurred in Edinburgh that Fin is already handling. And he grew up on the Isle of Lewis, knows the residents as well as t ...more

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Jun 13, 2012 Anna rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery-crime, read-in-2012, 2-stars

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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Aug 01, 2020 Kay rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: scotland, libby, library-c, crime, mystery, detective, audiobook, fiction

"The whole truth would never leave the rock. It would stay here among the chaos of boulders and birds, whispered only in the wind."

A brilliant crime novel. The Blackhouse is my first novel by Peter May and I'm patiently waiting inline for the second book in the trilogy. The backdrop for the novel is in the remote northwestern island of Scotland, Isle of Lewis. Detective Inspector Fin MacLeod in Edinburgh, Lewis born and raised, was assigned and to return to Lewis to investigate a crime.

Bear ...more

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Apr 11, 2012 Stuart Goodwin rated it really liked it

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 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! ...more

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Feb 10, 2020 Deb Jones rated it it was amazing

Shelves: series, soft-crime-drama, crime, suspense

I began reading this book with no preconceived notions as to the plot, setting, etc. It was one of those books that the site recommends on the Home page based on our reading preferences. I knew it was a police procedural with an average rating slightly above 4-stars in the community and the first in a series. Yes, all the boxes checked that I was seeking, so full steam ahead I went.

Am I glad I did! This book is a soft crime drama, a police procedural, but it is so much more than that. The settin ...more

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Jul 03, 2014 Sue rated it really liked it

Shelves: read-2014, mystery, net-galley, scotland

Detective Fin Macleod is coming off a difficult time in his personal life when he is told by his boss that he must travel back to a place he has avoided for years, the Isle of Lewis in the Hebrides, the island of his birth and where he grew up. He is being sent to assess whether a local murder may, in fact, be related to one that has been committed in Edinburgh where he has been on the force for some 16 years. They both bear marked similarities.

The Blackhouse is a mystery/police procedural but i Detective Fin Macleod is coming off a difficult time in his personal life when he is told by his boss that he must travel back to a place he has avoided for years, the Isle of Lewis in the Hebrides, the island of his birth and where he grew up. He is being sent to assess whether a local murder may, in fact, be related to one that has been committed in Edinburgh where he has been on the force for some 16 years. They both bear marked similarities.

The Blackhouse is a mystery/police procedural but is also much more. It is a tale of people, characters, setting, history and culture. The land and ocean have shaped the people as has the stern religion. All of these are major parts of this novel. Personally, this is what I want in a mystery---backstory where the characters earn the action. And here all is most definitely earned.

The descriptions of the island are poetic at times, though not always pretty.

Ahead lay twelve miles of bleak moorland as the road
straightened out and took them northwest toward the tiny
settlement of Barvas on the west coast. It was a brooding
landscape that in a moment of sunlight could be
unexpectedly transformed. Fin knew the road well, in all
seasons, and had never ceased to marvel at how the inter-
minable acres of featureless peatbog could change by the
month, the day, or even the minute. The dead straw colour
of winter, the carpets of tiny white spring flowers, the
dazzling purples of summer. To their right the sky had
blackened, and the rain was falling somewhere in the
hinterland. To their left the sky was almost clear,
summer sunlight falling across the land, and they could
see in the distance the pale outline of the mountains of
Harris. Fin had forgotten how big the sky was here.
(loc 800)

Fin relives elements of his past as the story unspools which introduces us to the island communities more than brief descriptions would. He also finds a capable and friendly partner in a local policeman, DS George Gunn. The two become a good team working with and against the DCI from Inverness running the investigation.

I definitely recommend this book to mystery lovers who like that extra element, history of the characters and culture beyond the specific mystery at hand. Combine that with evocative writing and I will return again, for sure.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing an ecopy of this book for the purpose of review. ...more

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Dec 05, 2015 Christine rated it it was amazing

I am slightly late (ahem!) in discovering The Lewis Trilogy, to my shame. This is the first book in the series following Fin Macleod, set in the north of Scotland. It is a murder mystery, as much as it is a human interest story. Fin’s past is as absorbing, as the hunt for the killer.

Fin Macleod goes back to the Isle of Lewis, when a murder there bears a striking similarity to his current case in Edinburgh. Fin is forced to confront the many people he left behind and to face memories. We follow t ...more

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Sep 02, 2019 Algernon (Darth Anyan) rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2019

It might have been August, but someone had a fire lit in their hearth. That rich, toasty, unmistakable smell of peat smoke carried to him on the breeze. It took him back twenty, thirty years. It was extraordinary, he thought, how much he had changed in that time, and how little things had changed in this place where he had grown up. He felt like a ghost haunting his own past, walking the streets of his childhood.

The furthest North you go, the gloomier the detective novels get, while the invest ...more

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Apr 28, 2016 Carolyn rated it it was amazing

Shelves: mystery, crime, around-the-world

Fin McLeod, a detective in Edinburgh has been sent to the Hebridean island of Lewis to investigate a brutal murder that resembles one he has been investigating in Edinburgh. Fin himself was raised on Lewis and has many memories he hasn't revisited since he left to go to University. However, when he discovers that the murdered man is an old schoolyard foe, he is drawn back into his old world as he investigates past friends and faces up to old events.

Peter May has an excellent ability to draw fine ...more

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Mar 29, 2014 Harry rated it really liked it

Shelves: british-detectives, detective-mystery, coming-of-age, ethno-mysteries

Book Review

Categorized as mystery novel, Peter May’s The Blackhouse (#1 in The Lewis Trilogy) could just as easily fall within a coming-of-age mystery novel, or fall within what I call the “ethno-mystery” genre. Take Krueger’s Ordinary Grace, a brilliant stand-alone novel about a story of the murder of a beautiful young woman in 1961 Minnesota. The seed that drives the entire novel is this crime but Kreuger, a master craftsman of the novel, invites us to scrutinize the consequences of being unju ...more

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Nov 04, 2019 Rob rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: scottish-authors, serial-thrillers

Book 1 of the Lewis trilogy first published 2009.

Eighteen years ago Fin MacLeod left the Isle of Lewis with aspirations of getting a university education in Glasgow. It didn’t take Fin long to realise that life in academia was not for him. With no real idea of where he saw his life heading Fin decided to stay on the mainland. With a lack of interesting prospects Fin became a police officer almost by default.
He is now a DI with the Edinburgh police force and currently working on a particularly gr ...more

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Apr 06, 2018 Ellen rated it it was amazing

Shelves: my-favorites, peter-may

The Blackhouse (Lewis Trilogy, #1) by Peter May.

This was my first novel by Peter May which won the Barry Award for Best Novel.

The story centers on the relationship between between Fin Macleod and Artair Macinnes both raised in their hometown of Crobost. The third wheel, so to speak, in their alliance is a farm girl Marsaili. Their relationship is thrown off balance and often teeters back & forth due to Marsaili.

A gruesome murder is discovered in the black house the feelings of most of the vill ...more

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Is the bird-hunting trip actually true in The Blackhouse?	1	13	Mar 25, 2021 09:15AM
Precinct 81: 357. The Lewis Trilogy / The Blackhouse	2	12	Dec 13, 2019 03:55AM
Read Scotland 2018: May/June: The Blackhouse	18	53	Sep 03, 2018 01:33AM
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About Peter May

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Lewis Trilogy (3 books)

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Quotes from The Blackhouse

“But the one thing Fin had learned from his years in the police was that however much you believed you had them figured out, people invariably surprised you.” — 15 likes

“Life went past you in a flash, like a bus on a rainy night in Ness. You had to be sure it saw you and stopped to let you on, otherwise it was gone without you, and you would be left with a miserable walk home in the wind and the wet.” — 8 likes

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