The Blackhouse by Peter May

The Blackhouse by Peter May
My rating: 5 of 5 stars


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 Fin investigates, old skeletons begin to surface, and soon he, the hunter, becomes the hunted.

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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) returns home to Isle of Lewis 18 years after he left the island to work as a police. An old classmate has been murdered and the murders similarities with a previous murder in Edinburgh. But this is not an easy case to take on for Fin. He most both face people and events from his past and at the same time find a killer who could be one of the people he used to know.

Peter May has written a very intense and dark crime novel. As we follow Fin in present day trying to find a killer we also get flashbacks to the past, to the events in his childhood that led to Fin in the end leaving the Isle of Lewis. This is one of the best crime novels I have read in a while, with a nerve-racking ending.

Highly recommended!