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Lewis Trilogy #2
The Lewis Man
LOVED THE BLACKHOUSE? THE TRILOGY CONTINUES WITH THE LEWIS MAN: AS FIN MACLEOD RETURNS IN AN INGENIOUS CRIME THRILLER ABOUT MEMORY AND MURDER.
A MAN WITH NO NAME
An unidentified corpse is recovered from a Lewis peat bog; the only clue to its identity being a DNA sibling match to a local farmer.
A MAN WITH NO MEMORY
But this islander, Tormod Macdonald - now an elderly man suffering from dementia - has always claimed to be an only child.
A MAN WITH NO CHOICE
When Tormod's family approach Fin Macleod for help, Fin feels duty-bound to solve the mystery.
386 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2011
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November 24, 2020
”Gunn… couldn’t take his eyes off the face of the young man locked in the peat. Although there was a shrivelled aspect to this features, they would be recognisable to anyone who knew him. Only the soft, exposed tissue of the eyes had decomposed. ‘How long’s he been here?’
Murdo’s laugh was lost in the wind. ‘Who knows? Hundreds of years, maybe even thousands. You’ll need an expert to tell you that.’”
I remember when I first heard about Bog People. 2000 year old corpses were being pulled from the earth, perfectly preserved like the one above. The historical data gathering possibilities had my head swimming with the revelations that would hopefully be ascertained. When a body is found in the peat on the Hebrides of Scotland, the first thought is, here is another time capsule from the past. From the past indeed, but not two thousand years, not even a thousand years or a hundred years.
The Elvis tattoo on the man’s forearm precisely dates that the corpse became a ghost fifty some years ago. If this were an episode of the Twilight Zone or an Outlander traveling through standing stones or a Jules Verne Time Machine situation, maybe we would need to call in Mulder and Scully to investigate, but this is a straightforward, hide the body in the peat and hope no one finds it scenario.
Meanwhile, Fin Macleod has quit his job in Edinburgh and decides to move back to the island to repair his parent’s derelict croft and, at the same time, make amends for the way he treated his ex-girlfriend, Marsaili. He doesn’t, frankly, deserve her, but maybe he does, at this point, deserve some forgiveness. What we do as young men and women should have an expiration date as we prove ourselves to be better human beings. The weight of our past transgressions can never go away, but it can be made lighter.
In the first book, I had a hard time forgiving Fin. Marsaili’s love for him was so pure, so unconditional. For her, he was her soulmate from the very moment she laid eyes on him as a wee lass. He broke her heart, and in the process, he broke my heart, too. What a tribute to the writing of Peter May that he managed to put me in the book and experience Marsaili’s pain as my own.
When they test the DNA of the peat bog corpse, they discover that he has to be a close relation to Marsaili’s father. And it is truly a What the Hell moment. Her father is suffering from alzheimer's and dementia. He remembers the past better than the present, but even those memories are becoming fragmented. It is difficult for him to tell a coherent story as his mind drifts from decade to decade like a spinning wheel that occasionally stops only to start again.
He isn’t who he says he is.
Marsaili, already struggling with a series of drastic situations going wrong, now has to face the fact that she isn’t who she thought she was. With only her Dad’s uncertain memories, she and Fin have to go to Edinburgh and start the journey to discover who her father really is and what happened to the man in the bog. Revelations take them to other islands in the Hebrides with the hope they discover enough information to prove that he father was not the killer of the bog man.
At one point, Fin comments that the only time you notice the wind is when it stops. I live in Dodge City, Kansas, which is routinely considered the windiest place in the United States, so when he made that comment I knew exactly what he was talking about. The weather is a constant threat on the Hebrides.
”It was a filthy morning, the wind sweeping in explosive gusts across the point, bringing with it waves of fine wetting rain, and laying flat the new-growth spring grasses. But he didn’t mind. He had grown up with this. It was normal. He loved to feel the rain stinging his face. He loved, too, the way the sky would open up at unexpected moments to let the light through. Flashes of cold, blinding sunlight on the surface of the ocean, like pools of mercury. They could last minutes or seconds.”
You have to love it, or you start to hate it.
The island is dominated by a harsh, unforgiving, suffocating religion. Fin’s friend from his childhood, Donald Murray, put aside his wild ways and fully embraced this religion as he got older. Fin finds Murray and his beliefs too much to take. ”Faith is a crutch of the weak. You use it to paper over all the contradictions. And you fall back on it to provide easy answers to impossible questions.”
Maybe a bit harsher than what I would have said, but certainly Fin and I would find agreement on this subject.
Peter May ensnares the reader and soon has you walking down a road on Lewis Island, being blown sideways by the wind and hearing the ”tireless legions of riderless white horses crashing up against the stubborn stone of unyielding black cliffs.” The plot will wiggle into your brain and haunt your dreams until you give up and turn the light on to read a few more chapters. The smell of cut peat, the woodsmoke when it is finally dry enough to burn, and the howling wind that makes music with the eaves of your croft and whistles a tune through any hole found round your windows or doors will send shivers through you. You will be there wanting to leave, wanting to stay, but knowing you will return for book three.
If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at: https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten
Murdo’s laugh was lost in the wind. ‘Who knows? Hundreds of years, maybe even thousands. You’ll need an expert to tell you that.’”
I remember when I first heard about Bog People. 2000 year old corpses were being pulled from the earth, perfectly preserved like the one above. The historical data gathering possibilities had my head swimming with the revelations that would hopefully be ascertained. When a body is found in the peat on the Hebrides of Scotland, the first thought is, here is another time capsule from the past. From the past indeed, but not two thousand years, not even a thousand years or a hundred years.
The Elvis tattoo on the man’s forearm precisely dates that the corpse became a ghost fifty some years ago. If this were an episode of the Twilight Zone or an Outlander traveling through standing stones or a Jules Verne Time Machine situation, maybe we would need to call in Mulder and Scully to investigate, but this is a straightforward, hide the body in the peat and hope no one finds it scenario.
Meanwhile, Fin Macleod has quit his job in Edinburgh and decides to move back to the island to repair his parent’s derelict croft and, at the same time, make amends for the way he treated his ex-girlfriend, Marsaili. He doesn’t, frankly, deserve her, but maybe he does, at this point, deserve some forgiveness. What we do as young men and women should have an expiration date as we prove ourselves to be better human beings. The weight of our past transgressions can never go away, but it can be made lighter.
In the first book, I had a hard time forgiving Fin. Marsaili’s love for him was so pure, so unconditional. For her, he was her soulmate from the very moment she laid eyes on him as a wee lass. He broke her heart, and in the process, he broke my heart, too. What a tribute to the writing of Peter May that he managed to put me in the book and experience Marsaili’s pain as my own.
When they test the DNA of the peat bog corpse, they discover that he has to be a close relation to Marsaili’s father. And it is truly a What the Hell moment. Her father is suffering from alzheimer's and dementia. He remembers the past better than the present, but even those memories are becoming fragmented. It is difficult for him to tell a coherent story as his mind drifts from decade to decade like a spinning wheel that occasionally stops only to start again.
He isn’t who he says he is.
Marsaili, already struggling with a series of drastic situations going wrong, now has to face the fact that she isn’t who she thought she was. With only her Dad’s uncertain memories, she and Fin have to go to Edinburgh and start the journey to discover who her father really is and what happened to the man in the bog. Revelations take them to other islands in the Hebrides with the hope they discover enough information to prove that he father was not the killer of the bog man.
At one point, Fin comments that the only time you notice the wind is when it stops. I live in Dodge City, Kansas, which is routinely considered the windiest place in the United States, so when he made that comment I knew exactly what he was talking about. The weather is a constant threat on the Hebrides.
”It was a filthy morning, the wind sweeping in explosive gusts across the point, bringing with it waves of fine wetting rain, and laying flat the new-growth spring grasses. But he didn’t mind. He had grown up with this. It was normal. He loved to feel the rain stinging his face. He loved, too, the way the sky would open up at unexpected moments to let the light through. Flashes of cold, blinding sunlight on the surface of the ocean, like pools of mercury. They could last minutes or seconds.”
You have to love it, or you start to hate it.
The island is dominated by a harsh, unforgiving, suffocating religion. Fin’s friend from his childhood, Donald Murray, put aside his wild ways and fully embraced this religion as he got older. Fin finds Murray and his beliefs too much to take. ”Faith is a crutch of the weak. You use it to paper over all the contradictions. And you fall back on it to provide easy answers to impossible questions.”
Maybe a bit harsher than what I would have said, but certainly Fin and I would find agreement on this subject.
Peter May ensnares the reader and soon has you walking down a road on Lewis Island, being blown sideways by the wind and hearing the ”tireless legions of riderless white horses crashing up against the stubborn stone of unyielding black cliffs.” The plot will wiggle into your brain and haunt your dreams until you give up and turn the light on to read a few more chapters. The smell of cut peat, the woodsmoke when it is finally dry enough to burn, and the howling wind that makes music with the eaves of your croft and whistles a tune through any hole found round your windows or doors will send shivers through you. You will be there wanting to leave, wanting to stay, but knowing you will return for book three.
If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at: https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten
June 18, 2024
Sometimes it’s not so much the story itself as the way the story is told. In truth, there’s a great story here too but the way the tale unfolds and the care that’s been taken to order things just right and to disclose just enough whilst holding back a couple of nuggets of information until it can wait no longer… well, it’s a masterclass in how to get it right.
I’d enjoyed The Blackhouse so much I’d instantly started on the second part of this trilogy. Fin Macleod has left his police career behind to return to Lewis, the isle of his birth. He’s newly divorced and keen to escape the ghosts of Edinburgh. He is under no illusions that this will lead to a reunion with Marsaili, his childhood love - too much water has flowed under that particular bridge - but the draw of going 'home' is too much to resist.
A body has turned up on Lewis, buried in peat, which has preserved it. Is it a two thousand year old corpse? The mystery of the finding and Fin’s return are bound to collide, and so they do. But these books are only nominally crime fiction stories, really they are about the people who live on the remote Hedridean islands, the culture that their history and their seclusion breeds and the close relationships that are built between people who live in such close proximity. There are some hard-hitting issues to be addressed, too, and May pulls no punches.
I’ll give no more away than that, but I will say that I’m already halfway through the last book in this mini-series, and the quality is maintained, if not improved, throughout. The pacing of the stories and the atmosphere created is, in my opinion, second to none. These books should be made compulsory reading for anyone aspiring to write mysteries - and anyone who loves a good story.
I’d enjoyed The Blackhouse so much I’d instantly started on the second part of this trilogy. Fin Macleod has left his police career behind to return to Lewis, the isle of his birth. He’s newly divorced and keen to escape the ghosts of Edinburgh. He is under no illusions that this will lead to a reunion with Marsaili, his childhood love - too much water has flowed under that particular bridge - but the draw of going 'home' is too much to resist.
A body has turned up on Lewis, buried in peat, which has preserved it. Is it a two thousand year old corpse? The mystery of the finding and Fin’s return are bound to collide, and so they do. But these books are only nominally crime fiction stories, really they are about the people who live on the remote Hedridean islands, the culture that their history and their seclusion breeds and the close relationships that are built between people who live in such close proximity. There are some hard-hitting issues to be addressed, too, and May pulls no punches.
I’ll give no more away than that, but I will say that I’m already halfway through the last book in this mini-series, and the quality is maintained, if not improved, throughout. The pacing of the stories and the atmosphere created is, in my opinion, second to none. These books should be made compulsory reading for anyone aspiring to write mysteries - and anyone who loves a good story.
January 13, 2020
Many, many mystery/crime readers adore Peter May's Lewis Trilogy. I'm not one, but I'm in the minority. I favor a more spare writing style and fewer adjectives, less real estate devoted to family relationships, raising kids, careers, getting along with the in-laws, than The Lewis Man offers.
Flaws first. May has the former scriptwriter's tendency to write more mundane dialogue than is desirable and be more interested in romantic entanglements that are a distraction rather than enhancing the story arc. This book is easily 20% longer than benefits it. The lead mystery-solver, for lack of a better term, Fin MacLeod, is an amateur detective because he's not employed as a police officer during the course of this novel; however, he's an ex-cop, and the plot requires that he be getting to the bottom of the mystery before actual policemen become interested in investigating a murder committed several decades prior. He's a cardboard cutout with zero personality and if he died on the last page, you wouldn't have a moment of sadness. Honestly, I've never read a series before where the "star" is so unremarkable that I have to keep Googling his name a week after finishing the book.
Still, there were a lot of good aspects to the Lewis Man. May manages the gradual reveal of additional facts to keep readers engaged and maintain momentum, and he also is highly adept at shifting between timelines and POVs. Given the sheer quantity of characters in the Lewis Man, that's an accomplishment. (Early on, I desperately wished for a character list, but if you make it to page 80 or so, you'll either make your own or stop worrying about it.) A major character suffers from dementia and the first-person narratives of this character are superb and authentic. There's a lot of Scotland on every page, for those readers, like me, who want to have a strong sense of place in their novels.
If you like your mysteries with a little bit of soap opera and are reasonably tolerant of implausible rescues and the like, you may love it. If not, it's still a 3-star read, ... except - if you're a LitFic reader whose dirty secret is that -- between Booker longlist reads -- your comfort reading is well-written, well-crafted mysteries and detective novels, avoid this one. It's 100% genre and will only frustrate you.
Flaws first. May has the former scriptwriter's tendency to write more mundane dialogue than is desirable and be more interested in romantic entanglements that are a distraction rather than enhancing the story arc. This book is easily 20% longer than benefits it. The lead mystery-solver, for lack of a better term, Fin MacLeod, is an amateur detective because he's not employed as a police officer during the course of this novel; however, he's an ex-cop, and the plot requires that he be getting to the bottom of the mystery before actual policemen become interested in investigating a murder committed several decades prior. He's a cardboard cutout with zero personality and if he died on the last page, you wouldn't have a moment of sadness. Honestly, I've never read a series before where the "star" is so unremarkable that I have to keep Googling his name a week after finishing the book.
Still, there were a lot of good aspects to the Lewis Man. May manages the gradual reveal of additional facts to keep readers engaged and maintain momentum, and he also is highly adept at shifting between timelines and POVs. Given the sheer quantity of characters in the Lewis Man, that's an accomplishment. (Early on, I desperately wished for a character list, but if you make it to page 80 or so, you'll either make your own or stop worrying about it.) A major character suffers from dementia and the first-person narratives of this character are superb and authentic. There's a lot of Scotland on every page, for those readers, like me, who want to have a strong sense of place in their novels.
If you like your mysteries with a little bit of soap opera and are reasonably tolerant of implausible rescues and the like, you may love it. If not, it's still a 3-star read, ... except - if you're a LitFic reader whose dirty secret is that -- between Booker longlist reads -- your comfort reading is well-written, well-crafted mysteries and detective novels, avoid this one. It's 100% genre and will only frustrate you.
September 12, 2017
In the northern areas of Europe there are peat bogs created by proximity to specific soil, water, and chemical compounds occurring in nature. There have been bodies found, perfectly preserved, within these bogs for centuries. Some of them date back to the pre-Christian era; hundreds and even thousands of years before. Many of these appeared to have been sacrificial deaths, but others were murders. Although the bogs are frequently ‘harvested’ and then dried for heating purposes, they can still hold their secrets for many, many years.
The Lewis man is about one such bog person. Who is he? How is he connected to a family well known to Fin Macleod when he was growing up there? And how does this connect to the “homers” – the orphaned or unwanted children who are taken from their home environments and sent off to the wilds of Scotland to live with crofters on the land?
In pursuit of answers, Fin makes the painful journey back to Edinburgh even though he is just starting to feel at home on his native island of Lewis again. His journeys also take him up and down the Island and unknown to him, his enquiries have also alerted some undesirable characters intent on harm.
I keep trying to find answers myself. How does Peter May write in such a way that I find it almost impossible to put down the book without picking it up again after a few minutes? Somehow I feel I become part of these stories and putting the book down is like putting my life on hold. I need to know what happens next – to experience it in full Technicolor with all the sounds, smells, and sensations that are as real as life.
I am torn now. So eager to begin the third book of the trilogy; so sad because the ending of this saga is approaching. And yet, and yet . . . wild horses couldn’t keep me from opening the next book.
The Lewis man is about one such bog person. Who is he? How is he connected to a family well known to Fin Macleod when he was growing up there? And how does this connect to the “homers” – the orphaned or unwanted children who are taken from their home environments and sent off to the wilds of Scotland to live with crofters on the land?
In pursuit of answers, Fin makes the painful journey back to Edinburgh even though he is just starting to feel at home on his native island of Lewis again. His journeys also take him up and down the Island and unknown to him, his enquiries have also alerted some undesirable characters intent on harm.
I keep trying to find answers myself. How does Peter May write in such a way that I find it almost impossible to put down the book without picking it up again after a few minutes? Somehow I feel I become part of these stories and putting the book down is like putting my life on hold. I need to know what happens next – to experience it in full Technicolor with all the sounds, smells, and sensations that are as real as life.
I am torn now. So eager to begin the third book of the trilogy; so sad because the ending of this saga is approaching. And yet, and yet . . . wild horses couldn’t keep me from opening the next book.
June 10, 2018
Peter May’s The Black House, first in the Lewis Trilogy, was fabulous and made it to my favorite book list. A great mystery/thriller. The setting in a far Scotland isle makes the series so intriguing.
The Lewis Man, however, was totally different. The main character suffers from dementia so the reader is caught up in his confusion throughout the book. Not something I was expecting. No police action either.
I didn’t enjoy this as much as the first in the series, but do plan on reading #3.
4 out of 5 stars
The Lewis Man, however, was totally different. The main character suffers from dementia so the reader is caught up in his confusion throughout the book. Not something I was expecting. No police action either.
I didn’t enjoy this as much as the first in the series, but do plan on reading #3.
4 out of 5 stars
July 1, 2017
Rating: 3.5* of five
The Publisher Says: Marilyn Stasio in The New York Times raved: "Peter May is a writer I'd follow to the ends of the earth." Among the many honors received, The Blackhouse, the first novel in May's acclaimed Lewis trilogy, won the Barry and Crime Thriller Hound awards.
In The Lewis Man, the second book of the trilogy, Fin Macleod has returned to the Isle of Lewis, the storm-tossed, wind-scoured outer Hebridean island where he was born and raised. Having left behind his adult life in Edinburgh--including his wife and his career in the police force--the former Detective Inspector is intent on repairing past relationships and restoring his parents' derelict cottage. His plans are interrupted when an unidentified corpse is recovered from a Lewis peat bog. The only clue to its identity is a DNA match to a local farmer, the now-senile Tormod Macdonald--the father of Fin's childhood sweetheart, Marsaili--a man who has claimed throughout his life to be an only child, practically an orphan. Reluctantly drawn into the investigation, Fin uncovers deep family secrets even as he draws closer to the killer who wishes to keep them hidden.
Already an international bestseller and winner of numerous awards, including France's Prix des Lecteurs du Telegramme, The Lewis Man has the lyrical verve of Ian Rankin and the gutsy risk-taking of Benjamin Black. As fascinating and forbidding as the Hebridean landscape, the book (according to The Times) "throbs with past and present passions, jealousies, suspicions and regrets; the emotional secrets of the bleak island are even deeper than its peat bog."
My Review: I gave this second book in the Lewis Trilogy a higher rating The Blackhouse because the amount of backstory was equal, but put in the mind, and the heart, of Alzheimer's afflicted "Tormod Macdonald." This made all the difference to my reading experience. His awful past was a gut-punch to me, and all I'll say about the matter is that the Irish branch of the Catholic Church has a boatload of apologizing and begging for forgiveness to do.
As the complexities of Fin's, Marsaili's, and Donald Murray's deeply intertwined pasts and presents unfold in front of us, accented by the heartbreaking agony for all who love a dementia suffer, the bittersweet nature of aging and its compensatory widening of the inner emotional landscape come into sharp relief:
Simple, short, and very true.
The landscape of these Outer Hebridean islands is well suited to the story May is telling. The islands are scoured by Arctic winds, rains frequently unexpected and blown horizontally by F4 and greater gales, peppered with decaying ruins of human attempts to wrest a living from this dark and angry landscape. Watching the lives of others spin out of control is a deep and shameful pleasure. This is a story full of that pleasure.
Nor is it devoid of the basic satisfaction of the whole genre: Bad people don't escape their misdeeds. In fact, retribution for past wrongs is the foundation of this story. That healing, forgiveness, and new opportunities for better days are here as well is what keeps this book from being unbearably grim. May's books show that mastery of structure that comes from screenwriting is able to translate satisfyingly to the novel's page and pace.
The Publisher Says: Marilyn Stasio in The New York Times raved: "Peter May is a writer I'd follow to the ends of the earth." Among the many honors received, The Blackhouse, the first novel in May's acclaimed Lewis trilogy, won the Barry and Crime Thriller Hound awards.
In The Lewis Man, the second book of the trilogy, Fin Macleod has returned to the Isle of Lewis, the storm-tossed, wind-scoured outer Hebridean island where he was born and raised. Having left behind his adult life in Edinburgh--including his wife and his career in the police force--the former Detective Inspector is intent on repairing past relationships and restoring his parents' derelict cottage. His plans are interrupted when an unidentified corpse is recovered from a Lewis peat bog. The only clue to its identity is a DNA match to a local farmer, the now-senile Tormod Macdonald--the father of Fin's childhood sweetheart, Marsaili--a man who has claimed throughout his life to be an only child, practically an orphan. Reluctantly drawn into the investigation, Fin uncovers deep family secrets even as he draws closer to the killer who wishes to keep them hidden.
Already an international bestseller and winner of numerous awards, including France's Prix des Lecteurs du Telegramme, The Lewis Man has the lyrical verve of Ian Rankin and the gutsy risk-taking of Benjamin Black. As fascinating and forbidding as the Hebridean landscape, the book (according to The Times) "throbs with past and present passions, jealousies, suspicions and regrets; the emotional secrets of the bleak island are even deeper than its peat bog."
My Review: I gave this second book in the Lewis Trilogy a higher rating The Blackhouse because the amount of backstory was equal, but put in the mind, and the heart, of Alzheimer's afflicted "Tormod Macdonald." This made all the difference to my reading experience. His awful past was a gut-punch to me, and all I'll say about the matter is that the Irish branch of the Catholic Church has a boatload of apologizing and begging for forgiveness to do.
As the complexities of Fin's, Marsaili's, and Donald Murray's deeply intertwined pasts and presents unfold in front of us, accented by the heartbreaking agony for all who love a dementia suffer, the bittersweet nature of aging and its compensatory widening of the inner emotional landscape come into sharp relief:
Getting old doesn’t make them any less valid, or any less real. And it’ll be us one day.
Simple, short, and very true.
The landscape of these Outer Hebridean islands is well suited to the story May is telling. The islands are scoured by Arctic winds, rains frequently unexpected and blown horizontally by F4 and greater gales, peppered with decaying ruins of human attempts to wrest a living from this dark and angry landscape. Watching the lives of others spin out of control is a deep and shameful pleasure. This is a story full of that pleasure.
Nor is it devoid of the basic satisfaction of the whole genre: Bad people don't escape their misdeeds. In fact, retribution for past wrongs is the foundation of this story. That healing, forgiveness, and new opportunities for better days are here as well is what keeps this book from being unbearably grim. May's books show that mastery of structure that comes from screenwriting is able to translate satisfyingly to the novel's page and pace.
April 20, 2018
Full of twists and turns and incredible discoveries, this book is every bit as good as the first in the series, The Blackhouse.
When Peter May describes the Hebrides and its life style you can feel yourself right there, usually with the accompaniment of wind and rain! There is some sun and a few beaches in this book but I am still sure those fine days are in the minority!
I am enjoying the character of Fin Macleod. Even though he is no longer on the Force he works this crime like the policeman he was and pursues every clue that is available to him. The ending is unexpected and dramatic.
The next book concludes the trilogy which I hope will leave Fin in a better place in his life than he is now.
When Peter May describes the Hebrides and its life style you can feel yourself right there, usually with the accompaniment of wind and rain! There is some sun and a few beaches in this book but I am still sure those fine days are in the minority!
I am enjoying the character of Fin Macleod. Even though he is no longer on the Force he works this crime like the policeman he was and pursues every clue that is available to him. The ending is unexpected and dramatic.
The next book concludes the trilogy which I hope will leave Fin in a better place in his life than he is now.
October 21, 2017
Fin Macleod had resigned from the force in Edinburgh when his divorce finally came through, and journeyed home to Lewis Island – the place he’d grown up; the place of unhappy memories that he’d vowed never to return to. But Lewis Island also held the woman he’d loved as a young man – he felt unfinished business that he might be able to resolve.
Detective Sergeant George Gunn was called when the body was discovered in the Lewis Island peat bog – they’d expected it to be an ancient corpse as the acid in the peat would preserve the bodies as it had been by the Tollund Man, carbon dated as being from around 400 BC and perfectly preserved. But when evidence pointed to a murder which had occurred in the 1950s, then DNA matched with an islander, the inspectors were called in from the mainland.
Meanwhile Fin was insatiably curious – his police instincts kicked in – and Gunn and he set to work to solve the strange mystery. But secrets and lies; the dementia of the one person who might hold answers; and torment rippling through Fin, all caused a determination for the truth. Would he succeed in finding the answers he sought? Or would Fin wish he hadn’t pursued it so doggedly?
The Lewis Man is the second in the Lewis Trilogy by author Peter May and I thoroughly enjoyed it. A fascinating, fast paced mystery which held everything to satisfy in a crime/mystery/suspense novel, and by an author who never disappoints in my opinion. Highly recommended.
Detective Sergeant George Gunn was called when the body was discovered in the Lewis Island peat bog – they’d expected it to be an ancient corpse as the acid in the peat would preserve the bodies as it had been by the Tollund Man, carbon dated as being from around 400 BC and perfectly preserved. But when evidence pointed to a murder which had occurred in the 1950s, then DNA matched with an islander, the inspectors were called in from the mainland.
Meanwhile Fin was insatiably curious – his police instincts kicked in – and Gunn and he set to work to solve the strange mystery. But secrets and lies; the dementia of the one person who might hold answers; and torment rippling through Fin, all caused a determination for the truth. Would he succeed in finding the answers he sought? Or would Fin wish he hadn’t pursued it so doggedly?
The Lewis Man is the second in the Lewis Trilogy by author Peter May and I thoroughly enjoyed it. A fascinating, fast paced mystery which held everything to satisfy in a crime/mystery/suspense novel, and by an author who never disappoints in my opinion. Highly recommended.
October 18, 2024
5★
“ ‘I’d say he was a Caucasian. Quite young. Late teens or early twenties. A classic bog body, almost perfectly preserved.’
‘You’ve seen one before?’
‘Never. But I’ve read about them.’
. . .
Gunn gazed with unabashed curiosity at the almost mummified remains. ‘How did he die, Murdo?’
‘Violently, by the looks of it. There appear to be several stab wounds in the area of the chest, and his throat has been cut.’
. . .
‘How long’s he been here?’
Murdo’s laugh was lost in the wind. ‘Who knows? Hundreds of years, maybe even thousands. You’ll need an expert to tell you that.’”
Scotland and the islands of the Outer Hebrides – cold, wet, windswept, intriguing.
Fin Mcleod, newly retired from the police, has returned from Edinburgh to the tiny island of Lewis where he was raised by an aunt after his parents were killed in an accident. Following yet another tragic family loss in Edinburgh, he’s decided to leave and start over.
The girl he loved and lost had married and still lives on Lewis. Marsaili, (pronounced MARshally) is now widowed and dealing with her own parents and her 19-year-old son, who is the father of a new baby girl. Her plate is full and is about to overflow.
Her mother has just thrown her father out because she refuses to deal with his worsening dementia, telling Marsaili it’s her job to look after him. But worse is to come.
DS George Gunn approaches Fin for help, saying he knows how tight-lipped the islanders will be when the powers-that-be send over investigators from Edinburgh.
“‘And whoever they send is likely to be a lot less sensitive in the handling of it than me. The only clue we have to the identity of the young man in the bog is that he is related in some way to Tormod Macdonald.’
He paused to purse his lips in what seemed to Fin to be something like an apology. ‘Which puts Tormod himself right in the frame for the murder.’ ”
Tattoos on the bog body identify the murder as occurring after 1950, and DNA tests show he is related to Marsaili’s father, Tormod Macdonald, yes the old fellow with deteriorating Alzheimer’s.
Tormod is also an orphan, with no known family and very little history, so who is this murdered relative, and could Tormod be the killer?
It is an absorbing tale, made more so by Tormod’s inner reminiscences. When someone sits with him and he stares out the window, they wonder where his mind has wandered.
We know it is wherever a memory has taken him when triggered by something. When they find him sitting outside, getting drenched in the pouring rain, he says he has been on the boat between islands, so no wonder he is wet.
We have heard the whole story of that memory, but all his daughter and Fin have to go on is the occasional reference to a boat and the islands with no way of knowing what it means.
Tormod’s past was violent and abusive. He was a tough kid and protective of younger ones.
As in the first book, the weather is a feature. In the opening of the book, they are cutting peat when they discover the body.
“A sky torn and shredded by the wind. A sky that leaks sunlight in momentary flashes to spill across dead grasses where the white tips of bog cotton dip and dive in frantic eddies of turbulent air. In the next days the wild flowers of spring and early summer will turn the brown winter wastes yellow and purple, but for the moment they remain dormant, dead.”
Later in the story, it was hard to believe the primitive living conditions on the Isle of Harris in the 1960s.
“…the smell of peat smoke as the wooden door squeaked open into a dingy inner room, half filled with the stuff. A faint yellow light spilled from a Tilley lamp hanging low from the rafters, and a bank of peats glowed red in the open door of a black, cast-iron stove set against the end wall. An earthen floor was strewn with sand. This was the kitchen, living room and dining room all in one, a large table sitting in the middle of it, a dresser against the back wall, two small deep windows set on either side of the door. A tongue-and-groove wood-lined passage hung with coats and tools led off to … three bedrooms. There was no toilet, no running water, no electricity. It was as if… [it were] back in time from the twentieth century to some medieval past.”
No matter the weather, you went outside to pee, and you took a shovel to dig a hole if you needed to do more – and not near the house.
UK - twentieth century!
It’s an engrossing story of the families, the place, and the era. It is yet another example of children being used as commodities, but at least not left to starve and beg on the streets. I guess that’s the justification.
I love this cold, harsh place and its fierce and tender people and look forward to the next in the trilogy because book #4, The Black Loch, is coming out soon. A trilogy-plus 1?
My review of The Blackhouse,(Lewis Trilogy #1)
You might also be interest in Annie Proulx's recent excellent Fen, Bog and Swamp: A Short History of Peatland Destruction and Its Role in the Climate Crisis
My review of Fen, Bog and Swamp...
“ ‘I’d say he was a Caucasian. Quite young. Late teens or early twenties. A classic bog body, almost perfectly preserved.’
‘You’ve seen one before?’
‘Never. But I’ve read about them.’
. . .
Gunn gazed with unabashed curiosity at the almost mummified remains. ‘How did he die, Murdo?’
‘Violently, by the looks of it. There appear to be several stab wounds in the area of the chest, and his throat has been cut.’
. . .
‘How long’s he been here?’
Murdo’s laugh was lost in the wind. ‘Who knows? Hundreds of years, maybe even thousands. You’ll need an expert to tell you that.’”
Scotland and the islands of the Outer Hebrides – cold, wet, windswept, intriguing.
Fin Mcleod, newly retired from the police, has returned from Edinburgh to the tiny island of Lewis where he was raised by an aunt after his parents were killed in an accident. Following yet another tragic family loss in Edinburgh, he’s decided to leave and start over.
The girl he loved and lost had married and still lives on Lewis. Marsaili, (pronounced MARshally) is now widowed and dealing with her own parents and her 19-year-old son, who is the father of a new baby girl. Her plate is full and is about to overflow.
Her mother has just thrown her father out because she refuses to deal with his worsening dementia, telling Marsaili it’s her job to look after him. But worse is to come.
DS George Gunn approaches Fin for help, saying he knows how tight-lipped the islanders will be when the powers-that-be send over investigators from Edinburgh.
“‘And whoever they send is likely to be a lot less sensitive in the handling of it than me. The only clue we have to the identity of the young man in the bog is that he is related in some way to Tormod Macdonald.’
He paused to purse his lips in what seemed to Fin to be something like an apology. ‘Which puts Tormod himself right in the frame for the murder.’ ”
Tattoos on the bog body identify the murder as occurring after 1950, and DNA tests show he is related to Marsaili’s father, Tormod Macdonald, yes the old fellow with deteriorating Alzheimer’s.
Tormod is also an orphan, with no known family and very little history, so who is this murdered relative, and could Tormod be the killer?
It is an absorbing tale, made more so by Tormod’s inner reminiscences. When someone sits with him and he stares out the window, they wonder where his mind has wandered.
We know it is wherever a memory has taken him when triggered by something. When they find him sitting outside, getting drenched in the pouring rain, he says he has been on the boat between islands, so no wonder he is wet.
We have heard the whole story of that memory, but all his daughter and Fin have to go on is the occasional reference to a boat and the islands with no way of knowing what it means.
Tormod’s past was violent and abusive. He was a tough kid and protective of younger ones.
As in the first book, the weather is a feature. In the opening of the book, they are cutting peat when they discover the body.
“A sky torn and shredded by the wind. A sky that leaks sunlight in momentary flashes to spill across dead grasses where the white tips of bog cotton dip and dive in frantic eddies of turbulent air. In the next days the wild flowers of spring and early summer will turn the brown winter wastes yellow and purple, but for the moment they remain dormant, dead.”
Later in the story, it was hard to believe the primitive living conditions on the Isle of Harris in the 1960s.
“…the smell of peat smoke as the wooden door squeaked open into a dingy inner room, half filled with the stuff. A faint yellow light spilled from a Tilley lamp hanging low from the rafters, and a bank of peats glowed red in the open door of a black, cast-iron stove set against the end wall. An earthen floor was strewn with sand. This was the kitchen, living room and dining room all in one, a large table sitting in the middle of it, a dresser against the back wall, two small deep windows set on either side of the door. A tongue-and-groove wood-lined passage hung with coats and tools led off to … three bedrooms. There was no toilet, no running water, no electricity. It was as if… [it were] back in time from the twentieth century to some medieval past.”
No matter the weather, you went outside to pee, and you took a shovel to dig a hole if you needed to do more – and not near the house.
UK - twentieth century!
It’s an engrossing story of the families, the place, and the era. It is yet another example of children being used as commodities, but at least not left to starve and beg on the streets. I guess that’s the justification.
I love this cold, harsh place and its fierce and tender people and look forward to the next in the trilogy because book #4, The Black Loch, is coming out soon. A trilogy-plus 1?
My review of The Blackhouse,(Lewis Trilogy #1)You might also be interest in Annie Proulx's recent excellent Fen, Bog and Swamp: A Short History of Peatland Destruction and Its Role in the Climate Crisis
My review of Fen, Bog and Swamp...
March 21, 2020
Book 2 of the Lewis Trilogy first published 2011.
For me this series just gets better with each book.
Fin Macleod was born and brought up on the Isle of Lewis but left for the mainland and ended up being a police officer in Edinburgh. After the tragic lose of his little boy, Fin’s marriage fell apart to the point of divorce. Fin has to get away from Edinburgh and leave all his misery and heartache behind. The only place to go was back to the place he still called home, Lewis.
On Lewis the local police have just discovered a perfectly preserved body in a peatbog. The body is of an eighteen year old male who was brutally murdered sometime back in the 1950s. Forensics discover, by DNA, that the body is related to a local man, Tormod Macdonald. As it happens Tormod Macdonald is the father of Fin’s first and only true love, Marsaili Macdonald. As a result of the DNA Tormod Macdonald is now the prime suspect in the murder. Getting at the truth will be anything but easy as Tormod is an old man suffering from advanced dementia. He can’t remember what happened 5 minutes ago let alone 50 years ago.
Listening to the story as it unfolds from Tormod’s confused and troubled head was fascinating.
This, for me, was an intricate and fascinating journey with lots of twists and turns and an end I did not see coming until it happened.
There is no weak point to this book it’s full of strong characters inside a strong plot.
A great 4.5 stars read
For me this series just gets better with each book.
Fin Macleod was born and brought up on the Isle of Lewis but left for the mainland and ended up being a police officer in Edinburgh. After the tragic lose of his little boy, Fin’s marriage fell apart to the point of divorce. Fin has to get away from Edinburgh and leave all his misery and heartache behind. The only place to go was back to the place he still called home, Lewis.
On Lewis the local police have just discovered a perfectly preserved body in a peatbog. The body is of an eighteen year old male who was brutally murdered sometime back in the 1950s. Forensics discover, by DNA, that the body is related to a local man, Tormod Macdonald. As it happens Tormod Macdonald is the father of Fin’s first and only true love, Marsaili Macdonald. As a result of the DNA Tormod Macdonald is now the prime suspect in the murder. Getting at the truth will be anything but easy as Tormod is an old man suffering from advanced dementia. He can’t remember what happened 5 minutes ago let alone 50 years ago.
Listening to the story as it unfolds from Tormod’s confused and troubled head was fascinating.
This, for me, was an intricate and fascinating journey with lots of twists and turns and an end I did not see coming until it happened.
There is no weak point to this book it’s full of strong characters inside a strong plot.
A great 4.5 stars read
September 2, 2014
I'm not sure that I can do a proper review right away because the last book in the Lewis Trilogy is tapping its foot at me while I type. Any review of a book in this series must begin with the fact that Peter May is one of the most masterful storytellers writing today. His artistry with words is akin to listening to a symphonic performance of music that plays light and dark, loud and soft to a stunning consistency of perfection. The setting on the Isle of Lewis in Scotland is brought to life with May's descriptions, and the reader is soon drawn into this world that alternates in isolation, beauty, desolation, and comfort. The depth of the story, with its layers and twists, fascinates and surprises in all the right places. The characters he creates prove that we do all indeed have a story to tell, no matter how unassuming the lives we lead. Fin MacLeod is a favorite character for me, with all of his flaws, baggage, and uncertainty. He is strong and keeps his emotions in check, but his is a healing heart that the reader is hoping will see recovery. The mysteries and crimes that Fin must unravel and solve connect to his life and others on the Isle of Lewis in ways that have lain buried for years.
In The Lewis Man, the story begins with the discovery of a young man, well preserved and obviously murdered, in the peat bogs of the northern end of Lewis. To determine his identity, the local police detective stationed in Stornoway will accept the help of Fin MacLeod, who has just returned to the island after leaving his job as a policeman in Edinburgh. The mystery of who the murdered bog man is and what happened to him is somehow tied to Marsaili Macdonald's father, Tormod, but Tormod suffers from dementia and appears unable to offer any direction or useful information. Marsaili, with whom Fin has a complicated history, calls upon Fin to help unravel the ramblings and secrets of a man whose brain is deserting him. No one can imagine just how deeply buried the past can be. The journey to the truth will take readers the length of the Outer Hebrides, and the trip is spectacular with its changing scenery and cultural differences.
Peter May's treatment of Tormod Macdonald's dementia was outstanding, with the tragedy of losing oneself to a maze of garbled memories brought to the forefront. The chapters in which Tormod is wandering around in his mind and in his past are heart-wrenching to read and plausible to the state of dementia. May's own experience with his father's descent into dementia gives even more credence to the portrayal.
One suggestion I will make is to purchase Peter May's non-fiction photography and information book entitled Hebrides. With its amazing photographs taken by David Wilson and Peter's narrative, including chapters dedicated to each of the three books in the Lewis Trilogy, it will be a much valued resource while reading the fictional tales.
In The Lewis Man, the story begins with the discovery of a young man, well preserved and obviously murdered, in the peat bogs of the northern end of Lewis. To determine his identity, the local police detective stationed in Stornoway will accept the help of Fin MacLeod, who has just returned to the island after leaving his job as a policeman in Edinburgh. The mystery of who the murdered bog man is and what happened to him is somehow tied to Marsaili Macdonald's father, Tormod, but Tormod suffers from dementia and appears unable to offer any direction or useful information. Marsaili, with whom Fin has a complicated history, calls upon Fin to help unravel the ramblings and secrets of a man whose brain is deserting him. No one can imagine just how deeply buried the past can be. The journey to the truth will take readers the length of the Outer Hebrides, and the trip is spectacular with its changing scenery and cultural differences.
Peter May's treatment of Tormod Macdonald's dementia was outstanding, with the tragedy of losing oneself to a maze of garbled memories brought to the forefront. The chapters in which Tormod is wandering around in his mind and in his past are heart-wrenching to read and plausible to the state of dementia. May's own experience with his father's descent into dementia gives even more credence to the portrayal.
One suggestion I will make is to purchase Peter May's non-fiction photography and information book entitled Hebrides. With its amazing photographs taken by David Wilson and Peter's narrative, including chapters dedicated to each of the three books in the Lewis Trilogy, it will be a much valued resource while reading the fictional tales.
January 8, 2020
''The Lewis Man' by Peter May is book two in the noir Lewis Trilogy, but it can be read as a standalone. The first book, The Blackhouse, is as excellent as this one, and I recommend reading both. The first in the series explains the main character's backstory in more depth.
This is the cover blurb, which accurately describes the plot:
"A body is recovered from a peat bog on the Isle of Lewis. The male Caucasian corpse is initially believed by its finders to be over 2000 years old, until they spot the Elvis tattoo on his right arm. The body, it transpires, is not evidence of an ancient ritual killing, but of a murder committed during the latter half of the 20th century."
Finley (Fin) Macleod, the main character, has returned to the Isle of Lewis and the small community of Crobost after solving, and resolving, crimes and issues (which turned out to be one and the same - see 'The Blackhouse') from his childhood. Fin had avoided the outer Hebridean island where he was born and raised, but the last case his DCI assigned him required him to return there at age thirty-seven. He was seventeen when he left the Isle of Lewis, hoping to attend University in Glasgow (flunked out). Upon his return to the island, he was unexpectedly struck full force with intense nostalgia. Fin has quit the Edinburgh police ostensibly to restore his dead parents' rotting cottage, but in reality he loves the weather and people he thought he had left behind forever. So, he has resigned his job as DI and divorced his wife.
The father of his childhood sweetheart has dementia. Marsaili Macdonald, the ex-girlfriend and now widowed, is the mother of Fin's nineteen-year-old son, Fionnlagh. Marsaili's mother, seventy-year-old Mary, has finally given up on trying to take care of her husband and Marsaili's father, Tormod Macdonald. He is pooping almost every day on his bed, wandering, talking nonsense. Mary, herself elderly and weakening, has placed him in a nursing home. But he is remembering his childhood, of which Tormod had lied about to everyone. May tells of Tormod's history, alternating it with current events. Tormod, it seems, might know who the body discovered in the bog is. The problem? While he can remember some of it, he keeps mixing up people, places, events and time. He no longer understands he is old. Words are disappearing from his brain.
Whatever happened, is lost inside his head. Fin decides to investigate. What he learns is incredible....
The Catholic Church has much to answer for, gentle reader.
This is an exciting noir mystery novel and a terrific series! I plan to read the final book, 'The Chessman'.
This is the cover blurb, which accurately describes the plot:
"A body is recovered from a peat bog on the Isle of Lewis. The male Caucasian corpse is initially believed by its finders to be over 2000 years old, until they spot the Elvis tattoo on his right arm. The body, it transpires, is not evidence of an ancient ritual killing, but of a murder committed during the latter half of the 20th century."
Finley (Fin) Macleod, the main character, has returned to the Isle of Lewis and the small community of Crobost after solving, and resolving, crimes and issues (which turned out to be one and the same - see 'The Blackhouse') from his childhood. Fin had avoided the outer Hebridean island where he was born and raised, but the last case his DCI assigned him required him to return there at age thirty-seven. He was seventeen when he left the Isle of Lewis, hoping to attend University in Glasgow (flunked out). Upon his return to the island, he was unexpectedly struck full force with intense nostalgia. Fin has quit the Edinburgh police ostensibly to restore his dead parents' rotting cottage, but in reality he loves the weather and people he thought he had left behind forever. So, he has resigned his job as DI and divorced his wife.
The father of his childhood sweetheart has dementia. Marsaili Macdonald, the ex-girlfriend and now widowed, is the mother of Fin's nineteen-year-old son, Fionnlagh. Marsaili's mother, seventy-year-old Mary, has finally given up on trying to take care of her husband and Marsaili's father, Tormod Macdonald. He is pooping almost every day on his bed, wandering, talking nonsense. Mary, herself elderly and weakening, has placed him in a nursing home. But he is remembering his childhood, of which Tormod had lied about to everyone. May tells of Tormod's history, alternating it with current events. Tormod, it seems, might know who the body discovered in the bog is. The problem? While he can remember some of it, he keeps mixing up people, places, events and time. He no longer understands he is old. Words are disappearing from his brain.
Whatever happened, is lost inside his head. Fin decides to investigate. What he learns is incredible....
The Catholic Church has much to answer for, gentle reader.
This is an exciting noir mystery novel and a terrific series! I plan to read the final book, 'The Chessman'.
October 30, 2015
A body is found in the peat bog on the isle of Lewis. The only clue to the body's identity is that he was related to a local farmer. But the local farmer Tormed Macdonald is a man with dementia and he has always claimed to be the only child.
It strange that the hardest reviews to write are actually for the books that I love. It's sometimes so hard to put into words how great a book is that I just want to say read it and you will see why it is so good.
The Lewis Man is such a book, just like the first book in the series; The Blackhouse. There is something so appealing with the story, the characters, the setting and, of course, the writing that I couldn't stop reading the book.
The case in this book is interesting, this is what I can remember the first book I have read when the suspect in a murder case has dementia and what makes the case even tougher is that the suspect is Tormod Macdonald, ex-police Fin Macleod's first loves father. He may not be a police anymore, but he needs to try to find out the truth, even if it would mean hurting his relationship with Marsaili Macdonald.
It was a great read from the beginning to the end. The ending wasn't that intense as in the last book, but it was still very good and I'm looking forward to reading the last book in the trilogy.
It strange that the hardest reviews to write are actually for the books that I love. It's sometimes so hard to put into words how great a book is that I just want to say read it and you will see why it is so good.
The Lewis Man is such a book, just like the first book in the series; The Blackhouse. There is something so appealing with the story, the characters, the setting and, of course, the writing that I couldn't stop reading the book.
The case in this book is interesting, this is what I can remember the first book I have read when the suspect in a murder case has dementia and what makes the case even tougher is that the suspect is Tormod Macdonald, ex-police Fin Macleod's first loves father. He may not be a police anymore, but he needs to try to find out the truth, even if it would mean hurting his relationship with Marsaili Macdonald.
It was a great read from the beginning to the end. The ending wasn't that intense as in the last book, but it was still very good and I'm looking forward to reading the last book in the trilogy.
October 18, 2020
O Poder do Passado
Um cadáver dum jovem surge na turfa e a investigação da sua misteriosa morte levanta um véu de segredos passados que irão refletir-se numa teia de vidas presentes...
Numa prosa magnífica que nos embrenha na beleza agreste da ilha de Lewis, “Um Homem sem Passado” enfatiza o poder do passado (tal asserção parece contrariar o título, mas se lerem o livro irão constatar que não), mostrando como este se intromete nas vidas presentes, moldando-as e desviando-as para outros rumos...
Paralelamente, é uma viagem envolvente à indómita ilha de Lewis: https://youtu.be/feI2YGzqaLo
❤️🌟🌟🌟🌟❤️
Um cadáver dum jovem surge na turfa e a investigação da sua misteriosa morte levanta um véu de segredos passados que irão refletir-se numa teia de vidas presentes...
Numa prosa magnífica que nos embrenha na beleza agreste da ilha de Lewis, “Um Homem sem Passado” enfatiza o poder do passado (tal asserção parece contrariar o título, mas se lerem o livro irão constatar que não), mostrando como este se intromete nas vidas presentes, moldando-as e desviando-as para outros rumos...
Paralelamente, é uma viagem envolvente à indómita ilha de Lewis: https://youtu.be/feI2YGzqaLo
❤️🌟🌟🌟🌟❤️
May 14, 2013
Not often that you find a sequel that is even better than the original but this is one of them. Like the first book, this was two stories (one in the past, one in the present) that came together for a very clever ending. Enjoyed the book more for seeing the development of the characters from the first book but it could easily be read as a standalone novel.
A must read for anyone interested in the Scottish Highlands/Islands and also I found the scenes in my home town of Edinburgh very interesting and found out a few new facts about places that I have visited for years without ever knowing them before !
Off to track down the third book now...
A must read for anyone interested in the Scottish Highlands/Islands and also I found the scenes in my home town of Edinburgh very interesting and found out a few new facts about places that I have visited for years without ever knowing them before !
Off to track down the third book now...
October 23, 2020
Past is a Ruthless Hunter
In this second installment of the Lewis Trilogy, we’ll meet Fin Macleod as an ex-cop and ex-husband. All the ties with the present were finally cut, and he was now totally available to make peace with his past in the Isle of Lewis — he was now a whole Lewis Man.
Fin once left the Lewis island determined to never return. However, he left some unfinished business there, and... Past is a ruthless hunter who always gets His preys...
Since Fin is now an ex-cop, what used to be his present is now his past. But... again... Past is a ruthless hunter... 😉
In this second installment of the Lewis Trilogy, we’ll meet Fin Macleod as an ex-cop and ex-husband. All the ties with the present were finally cut, and he was now totally available to make peace with his past in the Isle of Lewis — he was now a whole Lewis Man.
Fin once left the Lewis island determined to never return. However, he left some unfinished business there, and... Past is a ruthless hunter who always gets His preys...
Since Fin is now an ex-cop, what used to be his present is now his past. But... again... Past is a ruthless hunter... 😉
September 8, 2020
Peter May does it again! This is book two in the Lewis trilogy and once again I'm drawn to the magnificent landscape of the Hebrides and May's amazing writing in this crime mystery novel. There is a light police procedural.
A well preserved body was found in a nearby peat bog. DNA shows the victim is related to Fin McLeod's childhood love Marsaili's father, Tormund who is suffering from dementia. We can hear Tormund's thoughts in first person in alternating chapters as he recollects old memories.
I was better prepared this time as I borrowed audiobook on Libby and also got a hard copy from the library to immerse myself with Scottish accent and can see the words in print.
A well preserved body was found in a nearby peat bog. DNA shows the victim is related to Fin McLeod's childhood love Marsaili's father, Tormund who is suffering from dementia. We can hear Tormund's thoughts in first person in alternating chapters as he recollects old memories.
I was better prepared this time as I borrowed audiobook on Libby and also got a hard copy from the library to immerse myself with Scottish accent and can see the words in print.
January 14, 2020
[9/10]
“You can never escape the island. It was there between us all those years, like an invisible shadow. It kept us apart. Something we couldn’t share.”
“There was a shadow, yes. But it wasn’t the island.”
Fin Macleod returns to the isle of Lewis in the Western Hebrides in this excellent sequel to “The Blackhouse”. After finally confronting the shadows from his past, Fin has resigned from the Edinburgh police force and is working to restore his parents’ croft, as he tries to cope with the loss of his child in a terrible accident, with his subsequent divorce from Mona and with the presence of Marsaili, his former lover, and their son Fionnlagh on the island.
But the shadows from the past refuse to be dispelled, with new questions posed as a bog body is discovered during annual peat cutting on Lewis island. Bog bodies are corpses extremely well preserved in the peat, sometimes for thousands of years. In this case, though, a tattoo of Elvis Presley on the body dates the murdered man to cca. 1950. Complicating matters even further for Fin, DNA analysis reveals the mystery man is closely related to Marsaili’s father, Tormod Macdonald.
We walk into that nursing home, and all we see are a lot of old people sitting around. Vacant eyes, sad smiles. And we just dismiss them as ... well, old. Spent, hardly worth bothering about. And yet behind those eyes every one of them has had a life, a story they could tell you. Of pain, love, hope, despair. All the things we feel, too. Getting old doesn’t make them any less valid, or any less real. And it’ll be us one day. Sitting there watching the young one dismiss us as ... well, old.
Tormod is plagued by age and Alzheimer, lost in recollections of the past that he is unable to share with his daughter or Fin. He is the Lewis Man of the title, whose story might remain buried for ever if not for the amazing talent of Peter May to weave together past and present into something more than a straightforward murder inquiry. The whole culture of these hardy people, scratching a living from windy machair and stormy seas, is encapsulated within the pages, like an ancient insect frozen in amber. Flashbacks from the past, of children set adrift in orphanages or sent to lonely crofts on distant shores by a merciless system, alternate with Fin’s efforts to reconnect with Marsaili and with his newly discovered son, with his own island heritage and with his own shadows that still haunt his waking hours.
“Most people spend their lives never knowing what lies beneath the stones they walk on. Cops spend theirs lifting those stones and having to deal with what they find. I was sick of spending my life in the shadows, Fionnlagh. When all you know is the darkest side of human nature, you start to find the darkness in yourself. And that’s a scary thing.”
Empathy is the name of the game and Fin’s secret weapon in his investigative arsenal. He looks at Tormod’s ravaged face and is able to glimpse the young boy who once found love and despair, pain and hope on the tiny island of Eriskay (pop. 143 as of 2011). Echoes of the events on the island still echo fifty years later and could still pose grave danger to Fin and to his loved ones.
Fin frowned. “A homer? What’s that?”
“A boy or a girl from a home, a ghraidh. There were hundreds of them taken out of the orphanages and local authority homes by the councils and the Catholic Church, and shipped out here to the islands. Just handed over to complete strangers, they were. No vetting in those days. Kids were dumped off the ferry at Lochboisdale to stand on the pier with family names tied around their necks, waiting to be claimed. The primary school up on the hill there was full of them. Nearly a hundred at one time.”
>>><<<>>><<<
The second book in the Lewis trilogy was every bit as good as the first one, and makes me eager to start on the next one as soon as possible. While it could be read as a stand-alone, my recommendation would be to start at the beginning in order to have a clearer picture of the Hebrides islands and of their people. Reading these novels, I find it incredible that Peter May is not a native to the islands, yet able to paint such a vibrant picture of Lewis and Eriskay and even to include local trivia as key points of his plot. ( The Eriskay jersey is one of the rarest pieces of craftwork you’ll find in Scotland today. ; also Eriskay is the real place described in the famous novel and movie “Whisky Galore” by Compton Mackenzie).
“You can never escape the island. It was there between us all those years, like an invisible shadow. It kept us apart. Something we couldn’t share.”
“There was a shadow, yes. But it wasn’t the island.”
Fin Macleod returns to the isle of Lewis in the Western Hebrides in this excellent sequel to “The Blackhouse”. After finally confronting the shadows from his past, Fin has resigned from the Edinburgh police force and is working to restore his parents’ croft, as he tries to cope with the loss of his child in a terrible accident, with his subsequent divorce from Mona and with the presence of Marsaili, his former lover, and their son Fionnlagh on the island.
But the shadows from the past refuse to be dispelled, with new questions posed as a bog body is discovered during annual peat cutting on Lewis island. Bog bodies are corpses extremely well preserved in the peat, sometimes for thousands of years. In this case, though, a tattoo of Elvis Presley on the body dates the murdered man to cca. 1950. Complicating matters even further for Fin, DNA analysis reveals the mystery man is closely related to Marsaili’s father, Tormod Macdonald.
We walk into that nursing home, and all we see are a lot of old people sitting around. Vacant eyes, sad smiles. And we just dismiss them as ... well, old. Spent, hardly worth bothering about. And yet behind those eyes every one of them has had a life, a story they could tell you. Of pain, love, hope, despair. All the things we feel, too. Getting old doesn’t make them any less valid, or any less real. And it’ll be us one day. Sitting there watching the young one dismiss us as ... well, old.
Tormod is plagued by age and Alzheimer, lost in recollections of the past that he is unable to share with his daughter or Fin. He is the Lewis Man of the title, whose story might remain buried for ever if not for the amazing talent of Peter May to weave together past and present into something more than a straightforward murder inquiry. The whole culture of these hardy people, scratching a living from windy machair and stormy seas, is encapsulated within the pages, like an ancient insect frozen in amber. Flashbacks from the past, of children set adrift in orphanages or sent to lonely crofts on distant shores by a merciless system, alternate with Fin’s efforts to reconnect with Marsaili and with his newly discovered son, with his own island heritage and with his own shadows that still haunt his waking hours.
“Most people spend their lives never knowing what lies beneath the stones they walk on. Cops spend theirs lifting those stones and having to deal with what they find. I was sick of spending my life in the shadows, Fionnlagh. When all you know is the darkest side of human nature, you start to find the darkness in yourself. And that’s a scary thing.”
Empathy is the name of the game and Fin’s secret weapon in his investigative arsenal. He looks at Tormod’s ravaged face and is able to glimpse the young boy who once found love and despair, pain and hope on the tiny island of Eriskay (pop. 143 as of 2011). Echoes of the events on the island still echo fifty years later and could still pose grave danger to Fin and to his loved ones.
Fin frowned. “A homer? What’s that?”
“A boy or a girl from a home, a ghraidh. There were hundreds of them taken out of the orphanages and local authority homes by the councils and the Catholic Church, and shipped out here to the islands. Just handed over to complete strangers, they were. No vetting in those days. Kids were dumped off the ferry at Lochboisdale to stand on the pier with family names tied around their necks, waiting to be claimed. The primary school up on the hill there was full of them. Nearly a hundred at one time.”
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The second book in the Lewis trilogy was every bit as good as the first one, and makes me eager to start on the next one as soon as possible. While it could be read as a stand-alone, my recommendation would be to start at the beginning in order to have a clearer picture of the Hebrides islands and of their people. Reading these novels, I find it incredible that Peter May is not a native to the islands, yet able to paint such a vibrant picture of Lewis and Eriskay and even to include local trivia as key points of his plot. ( The Eriskay jersey is one of the rarest pieces of craftwork you’ll find in Scotland today. ; also Eriskay is the real place described in the famous novel and movie “Whisky Galore” by Compton Mackenzie).
July 17, 2015
I wish that I had written the review for this book immediately on completing it, when I was still caught up in the rush attendant to finishing a book I've truly enjoyed. But I will try to do it justice now. The Lewis Man is the second of The Lewis Trilogy, coming after The Blackhouse which I enjoyed last year. If you plan to read these novels, you should read them in order so as to get to know the people fully, how they are revealed to themselves and each other.
This book is so much more than a mystery; it's the story of a place, the history of a people and the effects of geography and religion and economy. May is such a skilled writer. He continues the story begun in The Blackhouse by returning us, with Fin Macleod to the Isle of Lewis, where he was born and raised. Life is very different for Fin now after everything that happened both in the earlier book and his off-island life. And things are different on-island too as he becomes enmeshed in a new mystery involving a bog body, but not an ancient one. But enough of that. I don't want to give too much away. Let's just say that matters of identity are huge.
One of the characters who is integral to the novel is suffering dementia and I appreciate how May deals with this: the man himself, the overwhelmed and used up spouse, the sorrowful daughter, the friends not sure what to do, the caregivers trying to help in sometimes helpless situations. Parts of this are so spot on.
And then there is the prose itself, especially the descriptions of the land and sea. Truly lyrical. In this selection, Fin is traveling to another island area, away from where he has lived.
North Uist presented a dark, primal landscape.
Soaring mountains shrouded in cloud that poured down
slopes to spread tendrils of mist across the moor. The
skeletons of long-abandoned homes, gable ends standing
stark and black against a brooding sky. Hostile and
inhospitable bogland, shredded by scraps of loch and
ragged inlets. The ruins of all the failed attempts by
men and women to tame it were everywhere in evidence,
and those who remained were huddled together in a
handful of small, sheltered townships. (p 195)
A more brief example of his writing:
All along the ragged coastline, the sea sucked and
frothed and growled, tireless legions of riderless
white horses crashing up against the stubborn stone of
unyielding black cliffs. (p 89)
If you like good fiction with a mystery, strong sense of place, strong characters, and excellent writing, then this series is likely for you. Now, in addition to completing this trilogy, I plan to investigate May's other series.
Highly recommended.
This book is so much more than a mystery; it's the story of a place, the history of a people and the effects of geography and religion and economy. May is such a skilled writer. He continues the story begun in The Blackhouse by returning us, with Fin Macleod to the Isle of Lewis, where he was born and raised. Life is very different for Fin now after everything that happened both in the earlier book and his off-island life. And things are different on-island too as he becomes enmeshed in a new mystery involving a bog body, but not an ancient one. But enough of that. I don't want to give too much away. Let's just say that matters of identity are huge.
One of the characters who is integral to the novel is suffering dementia and I appreciate how May deals with this: the man himself, the overwhelmed and used up spouse, the sorrowful daughter, the friends not sure what to do, the caregivers trying to help in sometimes helpless situations. Parts of this are so spot on.
And then there is the prose itself, especially the descriptions of the land and sea. Truly lyrical. In this selection, Fin is traveling to another island area, away from where he has lived.
North Uist presented a dark, primal landscape.
Soaring mountains shrouded in cloud that poured down
slopes to spread tendrils of mist across the moor. The
skeletons of long-abandoned homes, gable ends standing
stark and black against a brooding sky. Hostile and
inhospitable bogland, shredded by scraps of loch and
ragged inlets. The ruins of all the failed attempts by
men and women to tame it were everywhere in evidence,
and those who remained were huddled together in a
handful of small, sheltered townships. (p 195)
A more brief example of his writing:
All along the ragged coastline, the sea sucked and
frothed and growled, tireless legions of riderless
white horses crashing up against the stubborn stone of
unyielding black cliffs. (p 89)
If you like good fiction with a mystery, strong sense of place, strong characters, and excellent writing, then this series is likely for you. Now, in addition to completing this trilogy, I plan to investigate May's other series.
Highly recommended.
July 17, 2025
Част от читателите са недоволни от продължението на "Черната къща", но на мен то много ми допадна.
В "Човекът от остров Люис", Мей умело надгражда историята и героите от предната книга.
Новата загадка, която напусналия полицията Фин има да разреши е доста необичайна. Единствено не можах да разбера, как може майката на Маршели да е толкова жестока и как всички някак твърде спокойно приемат това...
Научаваме и за една доста неприятна част от историческото минало на Хебридите.
Продължавам с третата и последна книга от трилогоята, удоволствие е да се чете прозата на Питър Мей.
Цитат:
"Докато си млад, минутите и часовете понякога се точат до безкрайност. Щом остарееш, вече са се насъбрали толкова много, че дори не забелязваш как отлитат. Потегляме от раждането си бавно, а след това се носим все по-стремглаво към смъртта."
В "Човекът от остров Люис", Мей умело надгражда историята и героите от предната книга.
Новата загадка, която напусналия полицията Фин има да разреши е доста необичайна. Единствено не можах да разбера, как може майката на Маршели да е толкова жестока и как всички някак твърде спокойно приемат това...
Научаваме и за една доста неприятна част от историческото минало на Хебридите.
Продължавам с третата и последна книга от трилогоята, удоволствие е да се чете прозата на Питър Мей.
Цитат:
"Докато си млад, минутите и часовете понякога се точат до безкрайност. Щом остарееш, вече са се насъбрали толкова много, че дори не забелязваш как отлитат. Потегляме от раждането си бавно, а след това се носим все по-стремглаво към смъртта."
May 25, 2017
This second book in the Lewis trilogy proves once again that Peter May is a master at using the unique and tempestuous backdrop of the Scottish Outer Hebrides to accentuate the mood of the story. He's quite fantastic at this, and he clearly holds an affection for the place, so loving is his detail.
Although the main crime of this story is not as strong as in the first book, I really enjoyed the way it’s told from past and present perspectives. I especially liked hearing the story of Tormod Macdonald’s childhood – heartbreaking yet enlightening, as described in the mind of a man who is currently suffering from dementia. It’s such a reminder of how easily and often society overlooks our elderly people.
”We walk into that nursing home, and all we see are a lot of old people sitting around. Vacant eyes, sad smiles. And we just dismiss them as… well, old. Spent, hardly worth bothering about. And yet behind those eyes everyone one of them has had a life and a story they could tell you. Of pain, love, hope, despair. All the things we feel, too. Getting old doesn’t make them any less valid, or any less real.”
The area I felt was most lacking was in the character of Tormod’s daughter, Marsaili. I feel that she could have had a larger part in this story, but she was mostly relegated to being Fin’s love interest, while he ran around searching for answers to her father’s past. There was a missed opportunity to further develop her character. Instead, she is described several times as “fragile” or “small and crushed,” and that’s just… blech. It minimizes her presence in the story and makes her feel like a stereotype.
All in all, this was a great read but with room for some improvements. Hoping Mr. May does better with his female characters next time. 3.5 stars, rounded up.
Although the main crime of this story is not as strong as in the first book, I really enjoyed the way it’s told from past and present perspectives. I especially liked hearing the story of Tormod Macdonald’s childhood – heartbreaking yet enlightening, as described in the mind of a man who is currently suffering from dementia. It’s such a reminder of how easily and often society overlooks our elderly people.
”We walk into that nursing home, and all we see are a lot of old people sitting around. Vacant eyes, sad smiles. And we just dismiss them as… well, old. Spent, hardly worth bothering about. And yet behind those eyes everyone one of them has had a life and a story they could tell you. Of pain, love, hope, despair. All the things we feel, too. Getting old doesn’t make them any less valid, or any less real.”
The area I felt was most lacking was in the character of Tormod’s daughter, Marsaili. I feel that she could have had a larger part in this story, but she was mostly relegated to being Fin’s love interest, while he ran around searching for answers to her father’s past. There was a missed opportunity to further develop her character. Instead, she is described several times as “fragile” or “small and crushed,” and that’s just… blech. It minimizes her presence in the story and makes her feel like a stereotype.
All in all, this was a great read but with room for some improvements. Hoping Mr. May does better with his female characters next time. 3.5 stars, rounded up.
September 19, 2016
In this second novel of the Lewis trilogy, Detective Fin Macleod has left the police force and his fractured marriage and returned to the place of his birth. When a body found in the peat bog turns out not to be ancient but that of a young man killed in the 1950s, Fin is asked by the local police to help investigate.
What unfolds is a complex story leading back to children abandoned by society and a secret kept hidden for over 50 years. As Fin investigates the mystery he re-connects with his own roots and the people he left behind. Peter May paints a broad picture of the people and life in the Hebrides in the 50s but also the culture and practices that are still practiced today. His descriptions of the islands are very evocative in describing the isolation and rugged beauty of the landscape and provide a rich backdrop for the mystery to gradually be unravelled.
What unfolds is a complex story leading back to children abandoned by society and a secret kept hidden for over 50 years. As Fin investigates the mystery he re-connects with his own roots and the people he left behind. Peter May paints a broad picture of the people and life in the Hebrides in the 50s but also the culture and practices that are still practiced today. His descriptions of the islands are very evocative in describing the isolation and rugged beauty of the landscape and provide a rich backdrop for the mystery to gradually be unravelled.
September 22, 2024
The Lewis Man is the second book in the Lewis Trilogy by award-winning British journalist and author, Peter May. Ten months on from losing his young son to a hit-and-run, Fin Macleod has quit his police job, divorced his wife of fourteen years, and is back on the Isle of Lewis, renovating the derelict white house on his late parents’ croft. Will he stay? Uncertain.
He’s tentatively connecting with Fionnlagh, the teenaged son he didn’t know he had (although he feels the same is unlikely with his first love, Marsaili, the young man’s widowed mother), when DS George Gunn brings puzzling news. A young man’s body, the victim of a brutal attack, has been uncovered in the local peat bog.
This corpse, though, was not buried hundreds of years ago, but perhaps less than sixty, and DNA indicates a sibling relationship to Tormod Macdonald, father of Marsaili. The match makes the old man the prime and only suspect, but Tormod always claimed to be an only child, and now has rapidly deteriorating dementia, which will make identifying the body a challenge.
While Gunn and Marsaili feel that anything Tormod tells them can’t be relied upon, Fin believes that the old man’s scattered recollections and fragments of memory are probably accurate, and that he would have no reason to lie. He regards what seem to be irrational ravings as potential clues and, with a somewhat reluctant Gunn, follows up on them to make a startling discovery.
Before the truth is revealed, there are trips to Eriskay and Edinburgh, to a tiny seaside village with an unusual church, and chats with a genealogist, an archivist, a former orphanage inmate, and a well-known Edinburgh crime figure. The friction between Catholic and Protestant, the “homers” taken from orphanages and often forced into slave labour, the traditional knitting patterns of Eriskay, and a St Christopher medal, all play significant parts.
May employs twin narratives to tell the story: Fin’s details present day events while Tormod recalls incidents from his youth, six decades earlier. As always, May’s gorgeous descriptive prose evokes the rugged beauty of his setting: “All along the ragged coastline, the sea sucked and frothed and growled, tireless legions of riderless white horses crashing up against the stubborn stone of unyielding black cliffs.” is one example.
Another: “The sky was black and blue, brooding, contused, rolling in off the ocean low and unbroken. The first spits of rain were smeared across his windscreen by the intermittent passage of its wipers. The pewter of the ocean itself was punctuated by the whites of breaking waves ten or fifteen feet high, and the solitary blue flashing light of the police car next to the ambulance was swallowed into insignificance by the vastness of the landscape.” The third instalment of this excellent Scottish crime trilogy, The Chessmen, is eagerly anticipated.
He’s tentatively connecting with Fionnlagh, the teenaged son he didn’t know he had (although he feels the same is unlikely with his first love, Marsaili, the young man’s widowed mother), when DS George Gunn brings puzzling news. A young man’s body, the victim of a brutal attack, has been uncovered in the local peat bog.
This corpse, though, was not buried hundreds of years ago, but perhaps less than sixty, and DNA indicates a sibling relationship to Tormod Macdonald, father of Marsaili. The match makes the old man the prime and only suspect, but Tormod always claimed to be an only child, and now has rapidly deteriorating dementia, which will make identifying the body a challenge.
While Gunn and Marsaili feel that anything Tormod tells them can’t be relied upon, Fin believes that the old man’s scattered recollections and fragments of memory are probably accurate, and that he would have no reason to lie. He regards what seem to be irrational ravings as potential clues and, with a somewhat reluctant Gunn, follows up on them to make a startling discovery.
Before the truth is revealed, there are trips to Eriskay and Edinburgh, to a tiny seaside village with an unusual church, and chats with a genealogist, an archivist, a former orphanage inmate, and a well-known Edinburgh crime figure. The friction between Catholic and Protestant, the “homers” taken from orphanages and often forced into slave labour, the traditional knitting patterns of Eriskay, and a St Christopher medal, all play significant parts.
May employs twin narratives to tell the story: Fin’s details present day events while Tormod recalls incidents from his youth, six decades earlier. As always, May’s gorgeous descriptive prose evokes the rugged beauty of his setting: “All along the ragged coastline, the sea sucked and frothed and growled, tireless legions of riderless white horses crashing up against the stubborn stone of unyielding black cliffs.” is one example.
Another: “The sky was black and blue, brooding, contused, rolling in off the ocean low and unbroken. The first spits of rain were smeared across his windscreen by the intermittent passage of its wipers. The pewter of the ocean itself was punctuated by the whites of breaking waves ten or fifteen feet high, and the solitary blue flashing light of the police car next to the ambulance was swallowed into insignificance by the vastness of the landscape.” The third instalment of this excellent Scottish crime trilogy, The Chessmen, is eagerly anticipated.
November 14, 2022
The fact that I read this entire thing despite all the confusing Scottish/Gaelic/etc names is a testament to its gripping story.
The plot reveals a mysterious body in the bog, identity unknown. Somehow he's connected to an old man with dementia who has secrets that are going to take a bit of work to unravel.
Honestly, all the descriptions went in one ear and out the other for me. I did not give two craps about the setting or the authenticity of location, language, etc. Meant nothing to me. It bogged me down more than anything. Sorry. I am not very PC when it comes to reading, I'm afraid.
But Tormod's story, now there was a hook! Firstly, his dementia was written incredibly well and respectfully, in my opinion. I loved the reality of the reactions of the people around him, and his dementia-addled processing of events. I found it quite fascinating and I really appreciated Fin's dealings with the old man. I think it added that much needed humanity that those with dementia are so often neglected.
Then you've got his mysterious past, and all the wild twists and turns that took! Honestly, I would have read a book that was JUST his story and been twice as happy, I think. I haven't read the first book in the series, so all the Fin drama with him and the people around him didn't really affect me too much. Love shmuv. I just wanted more Tormod.
I enjoyed how it all played out, and the mystery was well done. The names confused me a lot, but I managed to pick up the main story.
A fantastic mystery in a location I mostly hated (with too much authenticity for my lazy self), but a gripping narrative that will see you race through it. Recommended for crime lovers.
The plot reveals a mysterious body in the bog, identity unknown. Somehow he's connected to an old man with dementia who has secrets that are going to take a bit of work to unravel.
Honestly, all the descriptions went in one ear and out the other for me. I did not give two craps about the setting or the authenticity of location, language, etc. Meant nothing to me. It bogged me down more than anything. Sorry. I am not very PC when it comes to reading, I'm afraid.
But Tormod's story, now there was a hook! Firstly, his dementia was written incredibly well and respectfully, in my opinion. I loved the reality of the reactions of the people around him, and his dementia-addled processing of events. I found it quite fascinating and I really appreciated Fin's dealings with the old man. I think it added that much needed humanity that those with dementia are so often neglected.
Then you've got his mysterious past, and all the wild twists and turns that took! Honestly, I would have read a book that was JUST his story and been twice as happy, I think. I haven't read the first book in the series, so all the Fin drama with him and the people around him didn't really affect me too much. Love shmuv. I just wanted more Tormod.
I enjoyed how it all played out, and the mystery was well done. The names confused me a lot, but I managed to pick up the main story.
A fantastic mystery in a location I mostly hated (with too much authenticity for my lazy self), but a gripping narrative that will see you race through it. Recommended for crime lovers.
May 18, 2017
The Lewis Man is about Fin Macleod who is a divorced ex-policeman returning to the Isle of Lewis to fix up his family home and have a peaceful life. However, this did not happen, due to the discovery of a body in a peat bog that was identified as a relative of his best friend, Marsaili Macdonald. Readers of "The Lewis Man" will be taken on a ride with Fin to try and find the answer to the puzzle of the body discovered in the peat bog.
The Lewis Man is the second book I have read of Peter May and wow. I have added Peter May to my favourite Authors list. I love the way Peter May intertwine an old plot with present day events and combines both stories at the conclusion of the book. I like the way Peter May portrays and intertwine his characters throughout the book.
Readers of The Lewis Man will learn about what happen to orphan children during the 1950's. The Lewis Man also highlights how devasting dementia is on the suffer and the family. Reading The Lewis Man, you also learn about living on the Isle of Lewis.
I recommend this book.
The Lewis Man is the second book I have read of Peter May and wow. I have added Peter May to my favourite Authors list. I love the way Peter May intertwine an old plot with present day events and combines both stories at the conclusion of the book. I like the way Peter May portrays and intertwine his characters throughout the book.
Readers of The Lewis Man will learn about what happen to orphan children during the 1950's. The Lewis Man also highlights how devasting dementia is on the suffer and the family. Reading The Lewis Man, you also learn about living on the Isle of Lewis.
I recommend this book.
May 9, 2015
Book Review
Second in The Lewis Trilogy, Peter May once again invites his readers to explore the islands known as the Hebrides, off Scottland. The story continues with Fin MacLeod's fascinating story. We got to know Fin in May's spectacular first in the trilogy: The Blackhouse as he once again returns to Lewis Island in search of his Gaelic roots. You can find my review of that novel here.
I've become a huge fan of Peter May's work in this trilogy for several reasons. First: I find his study of the Hebrides islands to be an irresistible journey into ethnography written in a way so as to capture the attention of the reader. And, capture it in a way that a straight-forward ethnographic study will not. The reader is invested into learning more of the Gaelic culture as a means to understand the central character, Fin MacLeod, as well as the crime that has taken place. This is done in such an original and captivating manner that the reader does not even realize the amount of information he or she takes in as Fin attempts to solve the Lewis riddle. Moreover, the information is being passed onto the reader using exquisite descriptive passages that serve more than one purpose: yes, the passages are seen as descriptive but they are also deceptively laden with clues as to plot, character, and motivation.
Second: I am always cognizant of what type of hero the author chooses for his main character. Does the author create a malevolent and torn hero (or anti-hero), or does he subscribe to a more Romantic Realism style, where the hero is a good guy that wins in the end? As an example of the first, we might think of the fabulous Harry Hole, the hero created by author Jo Nesbo whose flaws contribute as much to the story as anything else. As to the second, we can think of the 40 or more novels by author Dick Francis where we can relish in a true admiration for the hero. The Lewis Trilogy is an example of the latter. What I feel for Fin MacLeod is the same as what I would feel for, let's say Sid Halley, one of the recurring heroes in the Francis series (Dick Francis, by the way, is my favorite of all authors I've read within the genre). A Francis hero is personable, like able, full of integrity, rational, non-violent but delivers swift justice using his mind rather than physical force.
Third: Plot, for me, is essential. Plot involves the causations and consequences of human choices made based on the values they hold. Choice, free will, is specifically a human characteristic and along with conceptualization contributes in large part as to what makes us human. To omit plot from a fictional novel that involves people is like severing the humanity of what is being expressed, let alone what I derive from reading it. Plot is the exposition of volition. I know meta-fiction enthusiasts will scoff at this preference of mine, but, as I said, it is my personal opinion and merely addresses what it is that I find pleasurable in my reading and in large part it is what moves me in the direction of crime novels where plot is tantamount. In this regard, Peter May is a master story teller. Woven into the fabric of its ethnography, the Hebrides islands, the peat and crofts that pervade the islands, its people and Gaelic culture, and within the fabric of the novel's descriptive passages is a delicate but strong plot line that moves the reader from chapter to chapter. Peter May understands values and what they mean to the choices people make, especially as that pertains to the crime: to end another human life for all the wrong reasons.
What Fin encounters upon his return to Lewis Island is what some might call a cold case, at least fifty years old. A young man is found in the bogs, perfectly preserved by the acidity of the peat, pickled so to speak. Who is it? Why did he die? And who killed him? So, the first hurdle for the author Peter May might have been this: "Cold cases aren't normally very interesting. So, how do I make this story relevant to a current day Fin MacLeod?" And, he might have thought: "How do I tell this story in such a way that my readers become invested in the actors living 50 years ago?" Not only that, but May further decides to add another complication by making one of the main characters as a person suffering from dementia. And so he might have mused, “How to tell this story if one of my main characters can’t remember anything?” Through his brilliant use of First person vs. Third person, not only does the author create the effortless move between yesterday and today, but he also resolves the issue of a character’s dementia.
Today, I started The Chessmen, third in the Lewis Trilogy. I’ll report back on that one when I’m done with it. I highly recommend this trilogy for any fan of Tartan crime.
About the author
Peter May
Peter May has a prolific career in writing, starting out at the age of 21 when he won the Scottish Journalist of the Year Award. But, Peter's childhood dream was to be a novelist and that dream was accomplished at the young age of 26. That novel was to become a major BBC television drama series and that temporarily changed the direction of his writing career as he became one of Scotland's most prolific and popular TV dramatists.
With the approach of the new millennium May quit television and returned to his first love: novels. What is particularly interesting is the meticulous research May implements for his novels. For example, Peter spent 5 years on The Isle of Lewis, befriending its inhabitants and photographing the island and inhabitants as research for his novel The Blackhouse.He embarked on a series of thrillers which took him half-way across the world, to the land of China. There he made contacts and gained unprecedented access to the forensic science set ions of Beijing and Shanghai police forces and studied the work of Chinese detectives and pathologists. His efforts won him Elle Magazine's Best Crime Novel in 2005 and the Prix Polar International in 2008. His China thrillers feature Beijing detective Li Yan and a Forensic pathologist from Chicago, Margaret Campbell. China even made him an honorary member of their Chinese Crime Writer's Association.
There's another MacLeod hero featured in his books. Enter Enzo MacLeod, a cold cases crime series set in France where the author lives.
As a visitor myself to Second Life , I find it especially interesting that in researching his setting for the 2010 thriller Virtually Dead Peter May setup a virtual detective agency in Second Life, created his own avatar, Fick Faulds, and explored the metaverse: handling real Second Life investigations from paying clients (Second Life has its own denomination and yeah, it takes a credit card to convert dollars into their currency).
Next came the Lewis trilogy. Interestingly enough, the British Isles were not impressed and all the major publishing houses (to their current dismay) rejected to publish his first in the series: The Blackhouse. It was France that hailed it as a masterpiece and it was in France that it was fist published which led to the Prix des Lecteurs and the world's biggest adjudicated readers' prizes, the Prix Cezam. Finally, an upstart publishing house in the UK (Quercus) published The Blackbook and the rest is history. The Lewis Series became an instant best-seller in the UK, France if not worldwide and finally landed on US shores to win the Barry Award for Best Mystery Novel in 2013.
Second in The Lewis Trilogy, Peter May once again invites his readers to explore the islands known as the Hebrides, off Scottland. The story continues with Fin MacLeod's fascinating story. We got to know Fin in May's spectacular first in the trilogy: The Blackhouse as he once again returns to Lewis Island in search of his Gaelic roots. You can find my review of that novel here.
I've become a huge fan of Peter May's work in this trilogy for several reasons. First: I find his study of the Hebrides islands to be an irresistible journey into ethnography written in a way so as to capture the attention of the reader. And, capture it in a way that a straight-forward ethnographic study will not. The reader is invested into learning more of the Gaelic culture as a means to understand the central character, Fin MacLeod, as well as the crime that has taken place. This is done in such an original and captivating manner that the reader does not even realize the amount of information he or she takes in as Fin attempts to solve the Lewis riddle. Moreover, the information is being passed onto the reader using exquisite descriptive passages that serve more than one purpose: yes, the passages are seen as descriptive but they are also deceptively laden with clues as to plot, character, and motivation.
Second: I am always cognizant of what type of hero the author chooses for his main character. Does the author create a malevolent and torn hero (or anti-hero), or does he subscribe to a more Romantic Realism style, where the hero is a good guy that wins in the end? As an example of the first, we might think of the fabulous Harry Hole, the hero created by author Jo Nesbo whose flaws contribute as much to the story as anything else. As to the second, we can think of the 40 or more novels by author Dick Francis where we can relish in a true admiration for the hero. The Lewis Trilogy is an example of the latter. What I feel for Fin MacLeod is the same as what I would feel for, let's say Sid Halley, one of the recurring heroes in the Francis series (Dick Francis, by the way, is my favorite of all authors I've read within the genre). A Francis hero is personable, like able, full of integrity, rational, non-violent but delivers swift justice using his mind rather than physical force.
Third: Plot, for me, is essential. Plot involves the causations and consequences of human choices made based on the values they hold. Choice, free will, is specifically a human characteristic and along with conceptualization contributes in large part as to what makes us human. To omit plot from a fictional novel that involves people is like severing the humanity of what is being expressed, let alone what I derive from reading it. Plot is the exposition of volition. I know meta-fiction enthusiasts will scoff at this preference of mine, but, as I said, it is my personal opinion and merely addresses what it is that I find pleasurable in my reading and in large part it is what moves me in the direction of crime novels where plot is tantamount. In this regard, Peter May is a master story teller. Woven into the fabric of its ethnography, the Hebrides islands, the peat and crofts that pervade the islands, its people and Gaelic culture, and within the fabric of the novel's descriptive passages is a delicate but strong plot line that moves the reader from chapter to chapter. Peter May understands values and what they mean to the choices people make, especially as that pertains to the crime: to end another human life for all the wrong reasons.
What Fin encounters upon his return to Lewis Island is what some might call a cold case, at least fifty years old. A young man is found in the bogs, perfectly preserved by the acidity of the peat, pickled so to speak. Who is it? Why did he die? And who killed him? So, the first hurdle for the author Peter May might have been this: "Cold cases aren't normally very interesting. So, how do I make this story relevant to a current day Fin MacLeod?" And, he might have thought: "How do I tell this story in such a way that my readers become invested in the actors living 50 years ago?" Not only that, but May further decides to add another complication by making one of the main characters as a person suffering from dementia. And so he might have mused, “How to tell this story if one of my main characters can’t remember anything?” Through his brilliant use of First person vs. Third person, not only does the author create the effortless move between yesterday and today, but he also resolves the issue of a character’s dementia.
Today, I started The Chessmen, third in the Lewis Trilogy. I’ll report back on that one when I’m done with it. I highly recommend this trilogy for any fan of Tartan crime.
About the author
Peter May
Peter May has a prolific career in writing, starting out at the age of 21 when he won the Scottish Journalist of the Year Award. But, Peter's childhood dream was to be a novelist and that dream was accomplished at the young age of 26. That novel was to become a major BBC television drama series and that temporarily changed the direction of his writing career as he became one of Scotland's most prolific and popular TV dramatists.
With the approach of the new millennium May quit television and returned to his first love: novels. What is particularly interesting is the meticulous research May implements for his novels. For example, Peter spent 5 years on The Isle of Lewis, befriending its inhabitants and photographing the island and inhabitants as research for his novel The Blackhouse.He embarked on a series of thrillers which took him half-way across the world, to the land of China. There he made contacts and gained unprecedented access to the forensic science set ions of Beijing and Shanghai police forces and studied the work of Chinese detectives and pathologists. His efforts won him Elle Magazine's Best Crime Novel in 2005 and the Prix Polar International in 2008. His China thrillers feature Beijing detective Li Yan and a Forensic pathologist from Chicago, Margaret Campbell. China even made him an honorary member of their Chinese Crime Writer's Association.
There's another MacLeod hero featured in his books. Enter Enzo MacLeod, a cold cases crime series set in France where the author lives.
As a visitor myself to Second Life , I find it especially interesting that in researching his setting for the 2010 thriller Virtually Dead Peter May setup a virtual detective agency in Second Life, created his own avatar, Fick Faulds, and explored the metaverse: handling real Second Life investigations from paying clients (Second Life has its own denomination and yeah, it takes a credit card to convert dollars into their currency).
Next came the Lewis trilogy. Interestingly enough, the British Isles were not impressed and all the major publishing houses (to their current dismay) rejected to publish his first in the series: The Blackhouse. It was France that hailed it as a masterpiece and it was in France that it was fist published which led to the Prix des Lecteurs and the world's biggest adjudicated readers' prizes, the Prix Cezam. Finally, an upstart publishing house in the UK (Quercus) published The Blackbook and the rest is history. The Lewis Series became an instant best-seller in the UK, France if not worldwide and finally landed on US shores to win the Barry Award for Best Mystery Novel in 2013.
May 17, 2025
Very much enjoyed this! A bit of background: After reading the first book in the series I put the Isle of Lewis/Harris on my travel bucket list. Last year I traveled there as well as the Isle of Skye! Both are otherworldly in their beauty. Now reading about the Isle of Lewis is even better. The books are great!
April 20, 2021
Ay...este autor me tiene enamorada hasta las trancas.
Cómo se puede escribir tan bonito, tan precioso y tan maravilloso en una novela tan árida y tan triste... dicho así esto último os podrá parecer que el libro es deprimente, y nada más lejos; hasta la tristeza encierra ese punto de armonía que le da algo de belleza, algo parecido a lo que Arantza portabales diría que se llama "felicideza".
En fin, que como habréis comprobado, la novela me ha gustado mucho 😅.
Tiene una trama policiaca muy bien hilada, aunque ya os aviso de que es lenta y sin giros de dejar con la boca abierta como prometen muchos ahora... pero para mí esa trama es secundaria. Ya os digo que lo que me encandila es como May nos describe esas islas, esa forma de vivir, como nos ubica en un contexto sin hacernos sentir que es un turista o un pedante con mil conocimientos de lo que quiere presumir... Las dos novelas que he leído de él dejan patente su buen trabajo documental y una manera muy amena de plasmarlo.
¿Recomendaría este libro? Sí, sin duda alguna. Calidad (en mi opinión), entretenimiento, emotividad y unas ganas locas de viajar a Escocia a visitar las islas Hébridas ...eso es lo que me he encontrado entre sus páginas.
Cómo se puede escribir tan bonito, tan precioso y tan maravilloso en una novela tan árida y tan triste... dicho así esto último os podrá parecer que el libro es deprimente, y nada más lejos; hasta la tristeza encierra ese punto de armonía que le da algo de belleza, algo parecido a lo que Arantza portabales diría que se llama "felicideza".
En fin, que como habréis comprobado, la novela me ha gustado mucho 😅.
Tiene una trama policiaca muy bien hilada, aunque ya os aviso de que es lenta y sin giros de dejar con la boca abierta como prometen muchos ahora... pero para mí esa trama es secundaria. Ya os digo que lo que me encandila es como May nos describe esas islas, esa forma de vivir, como nos ubica en un contexto sin hacernos sentir que es un turista o un pedante con mil conocimientos de lo que quiere presumir... Las dos novelas que he leído de él dejan patente su buen trabajo documental y una manera muy amena de plasmarlo.
¿Recomendaría este libro? Sí, sin duda alguna. Calidad (en mi opinión), entretenimiento, emotividad y unas ganas locas de viajar a Escocia a visitar las islas Hébridas ...eso es lo que me he encontrado entre sus páginas.
December 10, 2021
Honestly I was reluctant to read the second book after how disappointed I was with the first but surprisingly I did enjoy the second installment of the trilogy!
This story gave me the opportunity to like Fin a little better since all the drama about his love life from the previous book was absent and through circumstances in this story a different side of his character is shown!
Even though a bit repetitive the descriptions of the islands was engaging and quite atmospheric!
A great part of the story are also the relationships between the characters and how they shift and change and how they are developing as personalities!
I liked the side story from Marsaili's father's past that was intriguing! And in the present time how it can affect us to to have a loved one with dementia and how experiences from a whole life straighten our feelings towards a person even though it has hurt us!
To the negatives now I count the fact that it was predictable, that it ended abruptly and that in some cases the author seems out of his depth as to expressing the feelings of his characters to the point that some things just don't make sense!
They are likeable on their own merits but not through the bonds between them!
This story gave me the opportunity to like Fin a little better since all the drama about his love life from the previous book was absent and through circumstances in this story a different side of his character is shown!
Even though a bit repetitive the descriptions of the islands was engaging and quite atmospheric!
A great part of the story are also the relationships between the characters and how they shift and change and how they are developing as personalities!
I liked the side story from Marsaili's father's past that was intriguing! And in the present time how it can affect us to to have a loved one with dementia and how experiences from a whole life straighten our feelings towards a person even though it has hurt us!
To the negatives now I count the fact that it was predictable, that it ended abruptly and that in some cases the author seems out of his depth as to expressing the feelings of his characters to the point that some things just don't make sense!
They are likeable on their own merits but not through the bonds between them!
April 28, 2018
The Lewis Man (2nd in the Lewis Trilogy) by Peter May.
Fin MacLeod has decided to take an early retirement from his position as Detective Inspector in Edinburgh. He's determined to go back and restore his parents croft as well as attempt to repair past relationships. Fin finds Massaili's family quite overwhelmed by the father's advancing dementia. No longer able to take care of him they quickly decide a nursing home must be arranged for him.
At this time a corpse is unearthed in a peat bog that appears at first to be the mummified remains of early man. Later, however, forensics discovers that this corpse was stabbed to death and not so long ago. A murder has taken place and the perpetrator must be found.
The connection between the corpse and fin's past is revealed in depth step by step. Clues take shape that Fin must follow, but he needs help from a man who is losing touch with reality more each day.
This dynamic story is enhanced by the elaborate detailing of the surroundings and how they affected each character at specific times i their lives.
Is it possible for the 2nd book to be better than the 1st book? When Peter May is the author...undeniably YES!!!
Fin MacLeod has decided to take an early retirement from his position as Detective Inspector in Edinburgh. He's determined to go back and restore his parents croft as well as attempt to repair past relationships. Fin finds Massaili's family quite overwhelmed by the father's advancing dementia. No longer able to take care of him they quickly decide a nursing home must be arranged for him.
At this time a corpse is unearthed in a peat bog that appears at first to be the mummified remains of early man. Later, however, forensics discovers that this corpse was stabbed to death and not so long ago. A murder has taken place and the perpetrator must be found.
The connection between the corpse and fin's past is revealed in depth step by step. Clues take shape that Fin must follow, but he needs help from a man who is losing touch with reality more each day.
This dynamic story is enhanced by the elaborate detailing of the surroundings and how they affected each character at specific times i their lives.
Is it possible for the 2nd book to be better than the 1st book? When Peter May is the author...undeniably YES!!!
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