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Lewis Trilogy #3
The Chessmen
THE NEW START
Fin Macleod, now head of security on a privately owned Lewis estate, is charged with investigating a spate of illegal game-hunting taking place on the island.
THE OLD FRIEND
This mission reunites him with Whistler Macaskill - a local poacher, Fin's teenage intimate, and possessor of a long-buried secret.
THE FINAL CHAPTER
But when this reunion takes a violent, sinister turn and Fin puts together the fractured pieces of the past, he realizes that revealing the truth could destroy the future.
275 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 1, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,871 reviews
March 18, 2023
So, after reading (well, listening to actually) this trio of books back-to-back I’ve reached the end. After The Blackhouse and Lewis Man introduced us to Fin MacLeod, this story completes a perfectly formed trilogy. The descriptions of the wild and remote Hebridean islands is ever present as is the all pervading influence of the church, but it’s the individual characters that rightly take centre stage here. We are introduced to quite a cast from Fin’s early years and learn a good deal more about how his life developed between leaving school and the beginning of his police career. Lifelong male friendships were forged and girlfriends came and went.
As before, there’s a crime to be solved - this time a body is discovered in a ‘plane after a loch is strangely emptied by a phenomenon known as a ‘bog burst’ – but this is never allowed to dominate proceedings. Just as interesting are the anecdotes from Fin’s early years and his catch-up with old friends and acquaintances. And there’s history here too. I was fascinated by the tale of the tragic fate of nearly 200 islanders who perished when the Iolaire hit rocks close to Stornaway Harbour. As the boat went down they were drowned or dashed against rocks. It was the early hours of New Year’s Day, 1919 and the men were soldiers returning home from fighting in the war. I found the account of this real event to be heartbreaking.
These books are brooding and sad in places but uplifting too. The bond between people on these islands feels different to anything I’ve experienced in my lifetime: somehow the linkage is stronger, the alliances more deeply held. But this can cause problems of its own in this place where everyone knows everyone and secrets are hard to keep.
It’s been a joy to be in the company of these people for the past few weeks and I will miss them, and the islands, desperately. I shall, though, be seeking out more work from the author – he knows how to spin a yarn, this man.
As before, there’s a crime to be solved - this time a body is discovered in a ‘plane after a loch is strangely emptied by a phenomenon known as a ‘bog burst’ – but this is never allowed to dominate proceedings. Just as interesting are the anecdotes from Fin’s early years and his catch-up with old friends and acquaintances. And there’s history here too. I was fascinated by the tale of the tragic fate of nearly 200 islanders who perished when the Iolaire hit rocks close to Stornaway Harbour. As the boat went down they were drowned or dashed against rocks. It was the early hours of New Year’s Day, 1919 and the men were soldiers returning home from fighting in the war. I found the account of this real event to be heartbreaking.
These books are brooding and sad in places but uplifting too. The bond between people on these islands feels different to anything I’ve experienced in my lifetime: somehow the linkage is stronger, the alliances more deeply held. But this can cause problems of its own in this place where everyone knows everyone and secrets are hard to keep.
It’s been a joy to be in the company of these people for the past few weeks and I will miss them, and the islands, desperately. I shall, though, be seeking out more work from the author – he knows how to spin a yarn, this man.
September 14, 2017
The Lewis Chessmen are real artifacts, discovered near Uig, Lewis in 1831. There is some speculation as to their origin, but they appear to have been crafted in the 12th century, and most historians believe they were originally created in Norway.
In this book, the last of the Lewis Trilogy, replicas of the chessmen play a pivotal role in solving a murder. There is another murder that is discovered – one that occurred 16 years ago. Again, Peter May’s masterful weaving of the stories of his characters’ pasts with events that are currently underway is completely spellbinding.
The period in Fin Macleod’s life that is highlighted through this last book is just prior to his university years through to shortly after those years. It is a time I could relate to well as he became the road manager during those years for a popular band named Solas and my own music career would have been occurring during the same ages. At times, the shenanigans and accidents and other weirdness of the lifestyle became very uncomfortable for me to read about. Someone peeked into my own past and wrote about it. Through it all, I could relate most closely to Fin because even though he was part of it, he wasn’t “in it” to the same degree the others were. That is to say, his mission was to remain as authentic as possible in a wild land of illusion, smoke, and mirrors.
So, to say this book struck close to my heart would be an understatement. The years described are a somewhat angst-ridden and uncertain time in young people’s lives anyway. Fresh out of high school and into a new school that is supposed to prepare one for the rest of their lives when they don’t really have a clue what they want to commit to for the rest of their lives. Not to mention the relationships and attempts to get those commitments sorted out and on track – all while making a multitude of mistakes and errors that either get carried for life as baggage, or learned from and added to the wisdom pile. There is much of this sorting out going on in the book. It makes it both endearing to read, and painful at times.
There were tie-ins to the first two books of the Trilogy in this third outing as well, and I am so glad that I read them one after the other as some of the threads are subtle, and ones that appeared to have been resolved or were non-resolvable in previous books. If asked, I could not honestly say which book of the three is my favorite. They are all of a piece – completely congruent with each other and inter-dependent on each other.
I loved this series and it is going to take some doing to find another that can impress me as much as this saga. I’m already feeling lonely for these people and this Island.
In this book, the last of the Lewis Trilogy, replicas of the chessmen play a pivotal role in solving a murder. There is another murder that is discovered – one that occurred 16 years ago. Again, Peter May’s masterful weaving of the stories of his characters’ pasts with events that are currently underway is completely spellbinding.
The period in Fin Macleod’s life that is highlighted through this last book is just prior to his university years through to shortly after those years. It is a time I could relate to well as he became the road manager during those years for a popular band named Solas and my own music career would have been occurring during the same ages. At times, the shenanigans and accidents and other weirdness of the lifestyle became very uncomfortable for me to read about. Someone peeked into my own past and wrote about it. Through it all, I could relate most closely to Fin because even though he was part of it, he wasn’t “in it” to the same degree the others were. That is to say, his mission was to remain as authentic as possible in a wild land of illusion, smoke, and mirrors.
So, to say this book struck close to my heart would be an understatement. The years described are a somewhat angst-ridden and uncertain time in young people’s lives anyway. Fresh out of high school and into a new school that is supposed to prepare one for the rest of their lives when they don’t really have a clue what they want to commit to for the rest of their lives. Not to mention the relationships and attempts to get those commitments sorted out and on track – all while making a multitude of mistakes and errors that either get carried for life as baggage, or learned from and added to the wisdom pile. There is much of this sorting out going on in the book. It makes it both endearing to read, and painful at times.
There were tie-ins to the first two books of the Trilogy in this third outing as well, and I am so glad that I read them one after the other as some of the threads are subtle, and ones that appeared to have been resolved or were non-resolvable in previous books. If asked, I could not honestly say which book of the three is my favorite. They are all of a piece – completely congruent with each other and inter-dependent on each other.
I loved this series and it is going to take some doing to find another that can impress me as much as this saga. I’m already feeling lonely for these people and this Island.
January 3, 2013
I hate to say this but the concluding book in the trilogy left me somewhat disappointed. if you had removed the epilogue, and this wasn't the concluding chapter in the trilogy, I might have felt differently. I.e. if this was a series of books like the David Hewson (Nic Costa) series), I wouldn't have felt that the entire story was compromised. My main issues would be:
I do not understand why the new character of Whistler was introduced. He had never been mentioned prior to this and given the relationship that was described it seemed inconceivable that a) he wouldn't have been mentioned as part of Fin's childhood in the first book and b) that Fin wouldn't have visited him before this point I.e upon his return to Lewis.
The character of Marsaili wasn't even a secondary character in the plot. Given that this was the concluding book of the trilogy I had anticipated that the characters we had come to know would be part of the plot structure. Fins relationship with Marsaili and his son were key to the previous books and both individuals were conspicuous by their absence. A lot of complex issues were introduced in the first two books which were not even touched upon. I understand the need for each book to be stand alone but for the readers who had followed this story from the beginning, I couldn't help but feel a little short changed.
The death of Fins son was a theme throughout the first two books and I had anticipated that this would form a large part of the concluding book. Therefore the epilogue felt and read very much like an after thought.
Hated the conclusion of the Donald Murray story. Seemed incredibly rushed and not at all well considered.
I do not understand why the new character of Whistler was introduced. He had never been mentioned prior to this and given the relationship that was described it seemed inconceivable that a) he wouldn't have been mentioned as part of Fin's childhood in the first book and b) that Fin wouldn't have visited him before this point I.e upon his return to Lewis.
The character of Marsaili wasn't even a secondary character in the plot. Given that this was the concluding book of the trilogy I had anticipated that the characters we had come to know would be part of the plot structure. Fins relationship with Marsaili and his son were key to the previous books and both individuals were conspicuous by their absence. A lot of complex issues were introduced in the first two books which were not even touched upon. I understand the need for each book to be stand alone but for the readers who had followed this story from the beginning, I couldn't help but feel a little short changed.
The death of Fins son was a theme throughout the first two books and I had anticipated that this would form a large part of the concluding book. Therefore the epilogue felt and read very much like an after thought.
Hated the conclusion of the Donald Murray story. Seemed incredibly rushed and not at all well considered.
December 22, 2018
The Chessmen is the last of the Lewis trilogy by Peter May. Written in beautiful and brutal prose, May takes us again to the harsh Isle of Lewis, a remote island in the outer Hebrides of Scotland steeped in Gaelic culture. The trilogy is centered around the life of Fin Macleod, formerly a detective inspector in The Edinburgh police force. After the death of his son and a failed marriage, Fin decides to return to his bleak, menacing birthplace.
Now working security for an estate overwhelmed with poachers, Fin and his friend Whistler come upon an old plane crash containing the body of a famous musician and friend who disappeared 17 years ago. With excellent storytelling, the novel weaves back and forth in Fin’s life connecting old band friends with today’s discovery.
The trilogy is a dark crime mystery thriller full of surprises. The Blackhouse, #1 of the 3, is brilliant. Definitely not a series I wish to see end. The author has other series and stand-alone books which I look forward to reading.
Highly recommend the trilogy.
4 out of 5 stars
Now working security for an estate overwhelmed with poachers, Fin and his friend Whistler come upon an old plane crash containing the body of a famous musician and friend who disappeared 17 years ago. With excellent storytelling, the novel weaves back and forth in Fin’s life connecting old band friends with today’s discovery.
The trilogy is a dark crime mystery thriller full of surprises. The Blackhouse, #1 of the 3, is brilliant. Definitely not a series I wish to see end. The author has other series and stand-alone books which I look forward to reading.
Highly recommend the trilogy.
4 out of 5 stars
August 18, 2020
EXCERPT: Whistler stood silhouetted against the light beyond the collection of broken shelters they called beehives, on a ridge that looked out over the valley, and Fin stumbled over sodden ground with shaking legs to join him.
Whistler neither turned nor acknowledged him. He just stood like a statue frozen in space and time. Fin was shocked by his face, drained as it was of all colour. His beard looked like black and silver paint scraped onto white canvas. His eyes dark and impenetrable, lost in shadow.
'What is it, Whistler?'
But Whistler said nothing, and Fin turned to see what he was staring at. At first, the sight that greeted him in the valley simply filled him with confusion. He understood all that he saw, and yet it made no sense. He turned and looked back beyond the beehives to the jumble of rock above them, and the scree slope that rose up to the shoulder of the mountain where he had stood the night before and seen lightning reflected on the loch below.
Then he turned back to the valley. But there was no loch. Just a big empty hole.
ABOUT THIS BOOK: Living again of the Isle of Lewis, the ex-Detective Inspector Fin McLeod is working as a security officer for a local landowner. While investigating illegal activity on the estate Fin encounters the elusive poacher and former childhood friend Whistler Macaskill.
But while Fin catches up with Whistler, the two witness a freak natural phenomenon--a 'Bog Burst'--which spontaneously drains a loch of its water, revealing a mud-encased light aircraft with a sickeningly familiar moniker on its side.
Both men immediately know hat they will find inside: the body of Roddy Mackenzie, a friend whose flight disappeared more than seventeen years before. But when Whistler's face appears to register something other than shock, an icy chill of apprehension overtakes Fin. What secret has Whistler been hiding from him, and everyone else on the island? Fin is unprepared for how the truth about the past will alter the course of the future.
MY THOUGHTS: I love Peter May's writing, and I have loved this trilogy. It oozes atmosphere. The plotting is taut and, while not always fast paced, is gripping to the point where I was digging my nails into my palms as I read.
May has the ability to take the reader on a roller coaster ride, both with emotions and expectations. I may have thought I knew where this was heading, but I didn't. I really didn't. He draws together the atmosphere of the rugged island with it's peat bogs and windswept crags, the pervasive strong religious beliefs of the islanders, their dourness and innate distrust of outsiders, the torn loyalties of a group of people who were once inseparable, to produce a finale to a superb trilogy that is both heart-wrenching and hopeful. I finished with tears in my eyes and an increased respect for this wonderful writer.
Although you could, theoretically, read these novels as stand alones, I urge you not to. You would miss out on so much backstory that enriches the series overall.
*****
“The drive down to Uig passed in a painful blur. Great fat raindrops spat on his windscreen like tears spilled for the dead.”
THE AUTHOR: Peter May is a Scottish television screenwriter, novelist, and crime writer. At age twenty-one, he was named Scottish Young Journalist of the Year. He was a prolific television scriptwriter in the UK for nearly twenty years and has won several literary awards for his novels. He now lives in France with his wife.
DISCLOSURE: I listened to the audiobook of The Chess Men written by Peter May, narrated by Peter Forbes and published by Quercus via Overdrive. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.
For an explanation of my rating system please refer to my Goodreads.com profile page or the about page on sandysbookaday.wordpress.com
This review and others are also published on Twitter, Instagram and my webpage
Whistler neither turned nor acknowledged him. He just stood like a statue frozen in space and time. Fin was shocked by his face, drained as it was of all colour. His beard looked like black and silver paint scraped onto white canvas. His eyes dark and impenetrable, lost in shadow.
'What is it, Whistler?'
But Whistler said nothing, and Fin turned to see what he was staring at. At first, the sight that greeted him in the valley simply filled him with confusion. He understood all that he saw, and yet it made no sense. He turned and looked back beyond the beehives to the jumble of rock above them, and the scree slope that rose up to the shoulder of the mountain where he had stood the night before and seen lightning reflected on the loch below.
Then he turned back to the valley. But there was no loch. Just a big empty hole.
ABOUT THIS BOOK: Living again of the Isle of Lewis, the ex-Detective Inspector Fin McLeod is working as a security officer for a local landowner. While investigating illegal activity on the estate Fin encounters the elusive poacher and former childhood friend Whistler Macaskill.
But while Fin catches up with Whistler, the two witness a freak natural phenomenon--a 'Bog Burst'--which spontaneously drains a loch of its water, revealing a mud-encased light aircraft with a sickeningly familiar moniker on its side.
Both men immediately know hat they will find inside: the body of Roddy Mackenzie, a friend whose flight disappeared more than seventeen years before. But when Whistler's face appears to register something other than shock, an icy chill of apprehension overtakes Fin. What secret has Whistler been hiding from him, and everyone else on the island? Fin is unprepared for how the truth about the past will alter the course of the future.
MY THOUGHTS: I love Peter May's writing, and I have loved this trilogy. It oozes atmosphere. The plotting is taut and, while not always fast paced, is gripping to the point where I was digging my nails into my palms as I read.
May has the ability to take the reader on a roller coaster ride, both with emotions and expectations. I may have thought I knew where this was heading, but I didn't. I really didn't. He draws together the atmosphere of the rugged island with it's peat bogs and windswept crags, the pervasive strong religious beliefs of the islanders, their dourness and innate distrust of outsiders, the torn loyalties of a group of people who were once inseparable, to produce a finale to a superb trilogy that is both heart-wrenching and hopeful. I finished with tears in my eyes and an increased respect for this wonderful writer.
Although you could, theoretically, read these novels as stand alones, I urge you not to. You would miss out on so much backstory that enriches the series overall.
*****
“The drive down to Uig passed in a painful blur. Great fat raindrops spat on his windscreen like tears spilled for the dead.”
THE AUTHOR: Peter May is a Scottish television screenwriter, novelist, and crime writer. At age twenty-one, he was named Scottish Young Journalist of the Year. He was a prolific television scriptwriter in the UK for nearly twenty years and has won several literary awards for his novels. He now lives in France with his wife.
DISCLOSURE: I listened to the audiobook of The Chess Men written by Peter May, narrated by Peter Forbes and published by Quercus via Overdrive. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.
For an explanation of my rating system please refer to my Goodreads.com profile page or the about page on sandysbookaday.wordpress.com
This review and others are also published on Twitter, Instagram and my webpage
February 10, 2017
This completes the trilogy of murder mysteries set on Lewis Island in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. Fin left this rural backwater 18 years before when he went to college on the mainland and subsequently became a police detective in Edinburgh. But the death of a child and the break-up of his marriage has him looking for self-repair from his roots in this remote Gaelic speaking community. In the prior book, we learned he has a special connection in the form of a son he didn’t know about being raised by the high-school girlfriend he left behind after an infidelity he regrets. This book starts with him working security for an estate manager and sharing the discovery of a body in an old plane crash when a bog suddenly drains. The body is believed to be that of an old classmate who had begun to achieve fame and success as the leader of a Gaelic folk pop group, for which Fin had served as the roadie. At the scene of the discovery is a reclusive poacher nicknamed Whistler who was a former member of the band who dropped out supposedly over jealousy over love for the group’s sexy vocalist. This book satisfied my love of books that work as biographies of place and special rural communities. It also taps into my fondness for crime procedurals in which the personal life, character flaws, and moral quandaries to the hero are bound up with the tale.
For a great overview of the series, see this review by fan Harry Roolaart: Link.
For a great overview of the series, see this review by fan Harry Roolaart: Link.
August 25, 2018
The final book in this trilogy and it did its job of wrapping up all the loose ends very well.
As with the previous two books the best part was the whole atmosphere of the island, the bogs, the mist, the rain and the way the people seem to live in a slower, old fashioned way. I actually liked this book a little less than the first two as it bounced around a bit too much into a past which did not really interest me.
Nevertheless it was still very good, very readable and a great conclusion to an excellent series.
As with the previous two books the best part was the whole atmosphere of the island, the bogs, the mist, the rain and the way the people seem to live in a slower, old fashioned way. I actually liked this book a little less than the first two as it bounced around a bit too much into a past which did not really interest me.
Nevertheless it was still very good, very readable and a great conclusion to an excellent series.
March 19, 2017
This is the third book in what is an excellent trilogy. Centred around Fin Macleod, the novels have taken him from an Edinburgh DI, grieving the loss of his young son and the breakdown of his marriage back to his childhood home on Lewis in the Outer Hebrides to reconnect with his old friends and lost loves. Now resigned from the police and employed to manage security on a large estate, he is living with his childhood sweetheart and coming to terms with being a father to a son he didn't know he had, but still feeling that something inside him is missing.
The novel opens with the discovery of a body, another cold case for Fin to solve but one that will drag up memories and people from his past to collide with the present. It's a tale of lies, jealousy and deception that has repercussions for Fin and his group of friends from his high school days.
What I love most about these books is the strong sense of place. I have never visited the Hebrides but with Peter May's fine writing I can visualise the eerie and windswept landscape of craggy mountains, grasses and boggy peat, the inland lochs and the cliffs along an often angry sea. I can also feel the insular, almost stifling feeling of living on an isolated island, one where little has changed over time and everyone is linked in some way.
I also enjoyed learning the story of the Lewis Chessman, 78 beautifully carved ivory chess pieces made in the 12th century in either Norway or Iceland and found on a Lewis beach in 1831. for further information see wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_c...
Below is a photo of one of the chess pieces in the British Museum, a beserker (infantryman) seen biting his shield prior to going into battle (isn't he gorgeous!):
The novel opens with the discovery of a body, another cold case for Fin to solve but one that will drag up memories and people from his past to collide with the present. It's a tale of lies, jealousy and deception that has repercussions for Fin and his group of friends from his high school days.
What I love most about these books is the strong sense of place. I have never visited the Hebrides but with Peter May's fine writing I can visualise the eerie and windswept landscape of craggy mountains, grasses and boggy peat, the inland lochs and the cliffs along an often angry sea. I can also feel the insular, almost stifling feeling of living on an isolated island, one where little has changed over time and everyone is linked in some way.
I also enjoyed learning the story of the Lewis Chessman, 78 beautifully carved ivory chess pieces made in the 12th century in either Norway or Iceland and found on a Lewis beach in 1831. for further information see wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_c...
Below is a photo of one of the chess pieces in the British Museum, a beserker (infantryman) seen biting his shield prior to going into battle (isn't he gorgeous!):
October 5, 2025
Segredos Venenosos
Eis-nos de volta à já famosa ilha de Lewis que, para nosso deleite, Peter May vai pincelando em quadros coloridos, recorrendo às palavras como aguarelas.
É pois em Lewis que iremos reencontrar Fin Macleod, desta feita, não de passagem mas já instalado e a trabalhar como chefe de segurança numa propriedade local — o proprietário queixa-se de caça furtiva e cabe a Fin investigar o caso.
Porém, sendo Fin um ex-detective, os cadáveres persistem em assediá-lo e eis que surge um avião num lago auto-drenado, contendo os restos mortais dum piloto que parece ter sido brutalmente assassinado. Supostamente, o avião ter-se-ia despenhado, mas, ao contrário do cadáver do piloto, encontra-se pouco danificado. Acresce que o falecido piloto não é estranho a Fin — trata-se de Roddy Mackenzie, um velho amigo com quem, conjuntamente com outros, Fin constituíra, em tempos idos, uma banda musical. E cá temos, novamente, o presente a interagir com um passado sempre pejado de segredos que, se revelados, irão induzir o futuro em direções indesejáveis. Não obstante, a investigação terá que seguir o seu curso…
Eis-nos de volta à já famosa ilha de Lewis que, para nosso deleite, Peter May vai pincelando em quadros coloridos, recorrendo às palavras como aguarelas.
É pois em Lewis que iremos reencontrar Fin Macleod, desta feita, não de passagem mas já instalado e a trabalhar como chefe de segurança numa propriedade local — o proprietário queixa-se de caça furtiva e cabe a Fin investigar o caso.
Porém, sendo Fin um ex-detective, os cadáveres persistem em assediá-lo e eis que surge um avião num lago auto-drenado, contendo os restos mortais dum piloto que parece ter sido brutalmente assassinado. Supostamente, o avião ter-se-ia despenhado, mas, ao contrário do cadáver do piloto, encontra-se pouco danificado. Acresce que o falecido piloto não é estranho a Fin — trata-se de Roddy Mackenzie, um velho amigo com quem, conjuntamente com outros, Fin constituíra, em tempos idos, uma banda musical. E cá temos, novamente, o presente a interagir com um passado sempre pejado de segredos que, se revelados, irão induzir o futuro em direções indesejáveis. Não obstante, a investigação terá que seguir o seu curso…
July 6, 2017
Rating: 3.5* of five
The series is complete. My relief is genuine.
I'll find something to say in due course.
**DUE COURSE HAVING ELAPSED**
Peter May cut his storytelling teeth in Scottish television, creating two prime time drama series and script-editing a third. He is very clearly Scottish, choosing an unfamiliar and unforgiving setting for this series: The Hebrides, no less than Ann Cleeves's more famous Shetlands TV and book series, is globally known for its distilled essence of Scottishness. No smart author who wasn't Scottish would dare to do this.
But the problem is that the Hebrides form an atmospheric backdrop for a personal saga of surpassing ordinariness. The gross-out food-gathering antics of the Hebrideans in The Blackhouse aren't integral to the murder, they're the handy means for it. The Lewis Man came off better than The Blackhouse because it was a universal plot far more compelling than the first one, but again the Hebrides could as easily have been the Balearics or the Cyclades.
Now, at the end of the trail, we're confronted with a murder that frankly makes no sense, a murder that makes all the sense in the world, a death that's explained in as bloodless (in the bad sense) a way as any in detective fiction, and a hit that my shoulders have been hunched in anticipation of since the middle of The Lewis Man.
I'm not one for book reports, so go read the synopsis and some more spoilery reviews to glean some insights into which might be what. I'm here to tell you that this wasn't a satisfying three-book read. But, the Gotcha! Gang is now crouched above their keyboards waiting to snort in derision, you read them! Yep. I did. I got the series from Quercus and, even though it takes me forever to get around to reviews these days, I still honor my commitments.
The end result of my reading isn't the sense of time wasted so much as time misused. The author has storytelling chops. He deploys the expected tropes in the usual order and does so against the background of a culturally unique place without, as Cleeves does, allowing us a deeper-than-guidebook sense of the ways and means of these isolated folks. I would be howling to the stars about these books if I'd felt the crimes had originated organically in Hebridean soil. The author's ability to make a story one wants to follow isn't in question. The main character is a homecoming middle-aged ball of grief and rage, so that's familiar. He isn't anyone we haven't met before, but he's well developed enough for that not to be a major concern.
In the end, I'm not sure what to tell you. If Scotland is a fascination of yours and you're a murder-mystery addict, ie if you're me, yeah sure read away. Don't expect a peak experience. If you're a tartan noir person, and why the hell wouldn't you be?, these will occupy summer beach hours adequately. Even refreshingly, given that there isn't a single warm day in any of the texts.
The series is complete. My relief is genuine.
I'll find something to say in due course.
**DUE COURSE HAVING ELAPSED**
Peter May cut his storytelling teeth in Scottish television, creating two prime time drama series and script-editing a third. He is very clearly Scottish, choosing an unfamiliar and unforgiving setting for this series: The Hebrides, no less than Ann Cleeves's more famous Shetlands TV and book series, is globally known for its distilled essence of Scottishness. No smart author who wasn't Scottish would dare to do this.
But the problem is that the Hebrides form an atmospheric backdrop for a personal saga of surpassing ordinariness. The gross-out food-gathering antics of the Hebrideans in The Blackhouse aren't integral to the murder, they're the handy means for it. The Lewis Man came off better than The Blackhouse because it was a universal plot far more compelling than the first one, but again the Hebrides could as easily have been the Balearics or the Cyclades.
Now, at the end of the trail, we're confronted with a murder that frankly makes no sense, a murder that makes all the sense in the world, a death that's explained in as bloodless (in the bad sense) a way as any in detective fiction, and a hit that my shoulders have been hunched in anticipation of since the middle of The Lewis Man.
I'm not one for book reports, so go read the synopsis and some more spoilery reviews to glean some insights into which might be what. I'm here to tell you that this wasn't a satisfying three-book read. But, the Gotcha! Gang is now crouched above their keyboards waiting to snort in derision, you read them! Yep. I did. I got the series from Quercus and, even though it takes me forever to get around to reviews these days, I still honor my commitments.
The end result of my reading isn't the sense of time wasted so much as time misused. The author has storytelling chops. He deploys the expected tropes in the usual order and does so against the background of a culturally unique place without, as Cleeves does, allowing us a deeper-than-guidebook sense of the ways and means of these isolated folks. I would be howling to the stars about these books if I'd felt the crimes had originated organically in Hebridean soil. The author's ability to make a story one wants to follow isn't in question. The main character is a homecoming middle-aged ball of grief and rage, so that's familiar. He isn't anyone we haven't met before, but he's well developed enough for that not to be a major concern.
In the end, I'm not sure what to tell you. If Scotland is a fascination of yours and you're a murder-mystery addict, ie if you're me, yeah sure read away. Don't expect a peak experience. If you're a tartan noir person, and why the hell wouldn't you be?, these will occupy summer beach hours adequately. Even refreshingly, given that there isn't a single warm day in any of the texts.
June 11, 2020
Book 3 and last book of the Lewis Trilogy published 2013.
A brilliant conclusion to The Lewis Trilogy.
The definition of a great writer is when that writer can remove you from the environment you are in and transport you somewhere completely foreign. And this Peter May does in spades. Sitting in my comfortable lounge I could feel the icy wind tug at my clothes, feel the rain as it soaked me to the bone; in short make me feel like I was on Lewis instead of my lounge.
Fin McLeod and his friend Whistler are out in the wilds of upland Lewis where they spend the night camping in a cave. In the morning leaving the cave both men see something that is beyond belief. Last night there was a loch just outside the caves entrance and this morning it’s gone. The entire area is now empty of water and in the middle of what was the loch is the wreck of a small plane. After investigating the site both men are completely lost for words. The crashed plane belongs to none other that a very close friend that disappeared from the face of the earth some seventeen years ago.
After the discovery of the plane the police start an investigation into the cause of the crash. When the truth that has been hidden for the last seventeen years comes to the surface lives will be for ever changed.
Whilst I would categorise this book as a thriller it’s a thriller that needs to be read and savoured. I never felt the need to rush to the end I was all too happy just to be where I was, freezing cold and soaking wet and seeing life through Fin McLeod’s eyes.
A great 5 star experience.
A brilliant conclusion to The Lewis Trilogy.
The definition of a great writer is when that writer can remove you from the environment you are in and transport you somewhere completely foreign. And this Peter May does in spades. Sitting in my comfortable lounge I could feel the icy wind tug at my clothes, feel the rain as it soaked me to the bone; in short make me feel like I was on Lewis instead of my lounge.
Fin McLeod and his friend Whistler are out in the wilds of upland Lewis where they spend the night camping in a cave. In the morning leaving the cave both men see something that is beyond belief. Last night there was a loch just outside the caves entrance and this morning it’s gone. The entire area is now empty of water and in the middle of what was the loch is the wreck of a small plane. After investigating the site both men are completely lost for words. The crashed plane belongs to none other that a very close friend that disappeared from the face of the earth some seventeen years ago.
After the discovery of the plane the police start an investigation into the cause of the crash. When the truth that has been hidden for the last seventeen years comes to the surface lives will be for ever changed.
Whilst I would categorise this book as a thriller it’s a thriller that needs to be read and savoured. I never felt the need to rush to the end I was all too happy just to be where I was, freezing cold and soaking wet and seeing life through Fin McLeod’s eyes.
A great 5 star experience.
May 6, 2018
The Chessmen (Lewis Trilogy #3) by Peter May.
My hope in writing my review is that the words, although inadequate, may reveal the depth and scope revealed so magnificently in this story by the author.
Fin MacLeod has chosen after 15 years to leave the police force. Now as ex-Detective Inspector he's returning to the Outer Hebrides, the place of his birth. The land, his past and all the faces from his past. All the unfinished business that's needs to be smoothed over...if that's possible after all the time that has past.
Fin and his wife, Mona, of 16 years are done. The only link they had to their loveless marriage was their precious boy. Fin's & Mona's son was killed by a hit and run driver who remains free to this day. The loss of his son's death brings bitterness & pain at the mere mention of his name.
Fin is about to embark on a new job. A job that will bring him face to face with another person from his past. The face of Whistler. His old and dear friend with whom he's had the closest of friendships, but now with a job that may cause him to rouse the deep seeded anger in Whistler that he's been known for.
The other face from Fin's past is that of Marsaili. His long lost love due to his own selfishness & stupidity. Can they ever begin where they left off or is this just wishful thinking on fin's part?
To say that this brilliantly written story had twists & turns are words that are not worthy enough for this author or book.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED FOR THE SERIOUS MINDED READERS.
My hope in writing my review is that the words, although inadequate, may reveal the depth and scope revealed so magnificently in this story by the author.
Fin MacLeod has chosen after 15 years to leave the police force. Now as ex-Detective Inspector he's returning to the Outer Hebrides, the place of his birth. The land, his past and all the faces from his past. All the unfinished business that's needs to be smoothed over...if that's possible after all the time that has past.
Fin and his wife, Mona, of 16 years are done. The only link they had to their loveless marriage was their precious boy. Fin's & Mona's son was killed by a hit and run driver who remains free to this day. The loss of his son's death brings bitterness & pain at the mere mention of his name.
Fin is about to embark on a new job. A job that will bring him face to face with another person from his past. The face of Whistler. His old and dear friend with whom he's had the closest of friendships, but now with a job that may cause him to rouse the deep seeded anger in Whistler that he's been known for.
The other face from Fin's past is that of Marsaili. His long lost love due to his own selfishness & stupidity. Can they ever begin where they left off or is this just wishful thinking on fin's part?
To say that this brilliantly written story had twists & turns are words that are not worthy enough for this author or book.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED FOR THE SERIOUS MINDED READERS.
March 4, 2013
I feel quite saddened to have to score it only three stars after having really enjoyed the first 2 books of the trilogy. Beautiful scenery, a very likable lead and an imaginative back story running from the previous books. However, for me there were a number of flaws:
*Whistler - for being such a good friend, he needed to have been mentioned in the earlier books
*Solas - if helping the band through Fins' school & uni years was so much a part of his life, it should also should have been mentioned earlier
*Roddy & the band - I don't feel there's been enough research into the Celtic music scene. I didn't find their level of success in the charts etc to mirror the true nature of how celtic music sits within the wider music scene of scotland and the uk. What about the various music festivals across scotland - eg Celtic Connections, a key part of the celtic music calendar, especially a band based in Glasgow. I just didn't find this element of the book to be believable let alone what we find out later about the plane & Roddy.
*Reverend Murray - the conclusion of the story felt rushed, almost an after thought. Having had so much time with these characters in the second book, I think they deserved more attention in the conclusion.
I still enjoyed the book but it is the weakest of the trilogy.
*Whistler - for being such a good friend, he needed to have been mentioned in the earlier books
*Solas - if helping the band through Fins' school & uni years was so much a part of his life, it should also should have been mentioned earlier
*Roddy & the band - I don't feel there's been enough research into the Celtic music scene. I didn't find their level of success in the charts etc to mirror the true nature of how celtic music sits within the wider music scene of scotland and the uk. What about the various music festivals across scotland - eg Celtic Connections, a key part of the celtic music calendar, especially a band based in Glasgow. I just didn't find this element of the book to be believable let alone what we find out later about the plane & Roddy.
*Reverend Murray - the conclusion of the story felt rushed, almost an after thought. Having had so much time with these characters in the second book, I think they deserved more attention in the conclusion.
I still enjoyed the book but it is the weakest of the trilogy.
November 19, 2024
4.5★
“More than a few of the men there that night knew of the history between Fin and Whistler, of their almost unbreakable teenage bond. It made the fact that Whistler had struck him all the more remarkable.”
In the towns and villages of a place as small as the Island of Lewis, in the Scottish Hebrides, I would imagine almost everyone in the bar would have known these two friends.
This is the third book of a trilogy that, through Fin Mcleod’s reflections, fills in his teen years, time at uni, and humphing (as he puts it) as a roady for their band, which was becoming famous. This was the period pretty much between books one and two.
He was a policeman in Edinburgh for many years, and he’s just taken a job as security for a young landowner from an old family who wants to crack down on the poachers catching his fish and shooting his game for their own use, as they have done for generations.
Surprise - the biggest culprit is John Angus Macaskill, aka Whistler, whose young daughter is living with her widowed stepfather. (Complex relationships on this isle.)
When a loch (lake) disappears suddenly, washing away and leaving a previously hidden small aircraft on the muddy lakebed, Fin and his old friend Whistler (yes, the poacher and the one who punched him in the bar), investigate. It’s the missing plane belonging to their bandmate, Roddy Mackenzie, who had disappeared seventeen years earlier.
In this book, Fin recounts the stories from their last years at school, when the teen boys were drinking, flirting, and mucking about on mopeds and small bikes, and getting themselves into various scrapes. Fin and Whistler discover they have a deeper connection than they realised.
An old bloke tells them about the disastrous sinking of a ship and the heroic rescue that saved a few lives.
‘It was Donnie Macleod that Calum John Macaskill risked his life to pull from the wreck of the ‘Iolaire’ that night. For sure, you wouldn’t have been here today, son, if this lad’s great-granddad hadn’t brought your grandfather ashore.’
The band connected them all, and it became famous, but Whistler decided not to travel with them any longer. His nickname, Whistler, was for his terrific flute-playing, but there had been a lot of friction over the lead singer, Mairead, whom all the boys had lusted after in high school and ever since.
“There were other good-looking girls at school, of course, but Mairead was a cut above. She held herself beautifully, with poise and confidence, and oozed the kind of latent sexuality that seemed solely designed to inflame a teenage boy’s passions.”
Whistler was easily the brainiest of them all, but chose to live on the Isle, poaching and making a living selling his carved chessmen, replicas of the ancient Lewis chess pieces.
https://www.nms.ac.uk/discover-catalo...
A good part of the book deals with the past, while the present-day connections between these old friends and frenemies ebb and flow. Fin and the others are worried about the troubled Reverend Donald Murray and the upcoming case against him for his actions in the last book.
I’ve tried not give any spoilers so that you can read the first books without knowing too much going in. I think you could actually read this one by itself, because the author fills in so many of the past blanks for you.
I cannot overstate how important the wild weather and dangerous, rocky crags and coastlines are in this trilogy, nor how well Peter May describes what seems indescribable. When Fin and Whistler are out late hiking in the hills one evening, they get separated. The lightning decides Fin – go home.
“The thunder that followed immediately was so directly overhead that it felt like a physical blow. And then the rain came. Out of nowhere. Sweeping suddenly down the valley in a blinding mist, the first exhalation of the storm. Hail was whipped into Fin’s face by a wind whose sudden increase in force very nearly knocked him off his feet. He turned and began to blunder back the way he had come.
Within minutes he had totally lost his sense of direction. Visibility was zero. He could see only in those brief moments when the lightning came. And then he stumbled forward with a memory of the next few yards held briefly in his mind, until his confidence wavered and he stopped, waiting for the next explosion of light.
Very quickly he realized that he was going up rather than down. But when he turned towards the descent he had no belief that it was taking him in the right direction.
The rain whipped relentlessly into his face, finding its way beneath his jacket at the cuffs and neck. He wasn’t wearing waterproof overtrousers, so his jeans were quickly sodden and heavy.”
He is hopelessly lost.
I cannot imagine being out in the weather that these people live with so much of the time, but I do love the people.
I enjoyed meeting the young adults that these (mostly) boys were before seeing them again in this story. There is a new book in the trilogy, The Black Loch, #4, which I look forward to reading soon.
My review of The Black House (Lewis Trilogy #1)
My review of The Lewis Man (Lewis Trilogy #2)
“More than a few of the men there that night knew of the history between Fin and Whistler, of their almost unbreakable teenage bond. It made the fact that Whistler had struck him all the more remarkable.”
In the towns and villages of a place as small as the Island of Lewis, in the Scottish Hebrides, I would imagine almost everyone in the bar would have known these two friends.
This is the third book of a trilogy that, through Fin Mcleod’s reflections, fills in his teen years, time at uni, and humphing (as he puts it) as a roady for their band, which was becoming famous. This was the period pretty much between books one and two.
He was a policeman in Edinburgh for many years, and he’s just taken a job as security for a young landowner from an old family who wants to crack down on the poachers catching his fish and shooting his game for their own use, as they have done for generations.
Surprise - the biggest culprit is John Angus Macaskill, aka Whistler, whose young daughter is living with her widowed stepfather. (Complex relationships on this isle.)
When a loch (lake) disappears suddenly, washing away and leaving a previously hidden small aircraft on the muddy lakebed, Fin and his old friend Whistler (yes, the poacher and the one who punched him in the bar), investigate. It’s the missing plane belonging to their bandmate, Roddy Mackenzie, who had disappeared seventeen years earlier.
In this book, Fin recounts the stories from their last years at school, when the teen boys were drinking, flirting, and mucking about on mopeds and small bikes, and getting themselves into various scrapes. Fin and Whistler discover they have a deeper connection than they realised.
An old bloke tells them about the disastrous sinking of a ship and the heroic rescue that saved a few lives.
‘It was Donnie Macleod that Calum John Macaskill risked his life to pull from the wreck of the ‘Iolaire’ that night. For sure, you wouldn’t have been here today, son, if this lad’s great-granddad hadn’t brought your grandfather ashore.’
The band connected them all, and it became famous, but Whistler decided not to travel with them any longer. His nickname, Whistler, was for his terrific flute-playing, but there had been a lot of friction over the lead singer, Mairead, whom all the boys had lusted after in high school and ever since.
“There were other good-looking girls at school, of course, but Mairead was a cut above. She held herself beautifully, with poise and confidence, and oozed the kind of latent sexuality that seemed solely designed to inflame a teenage boy’s passions.”
Whistler was easily the brainiest of them all, but chose to live on the Isle, poaching and making a living selling his carved chessmen, replicas of the ancient Lewis chess pieces.
https://www.nms.ac.uk/discover-catalo...
A good part of the book deals with the past, while the present-day connections between these old friends and frenemies ebb and flow. Fin and the others are worried about the troubled Reverend Donald Murray and the upcoming case against him for his actions in the last book.
I’ve tried not give any spoilers so that you can read the first books without knowing too much going in. I think you could actually read this one by itself, because the author fills in so many of the past blanks for you.
I cannot overstate how important the wild weather and dangerous, rocky crags and coastlines are in this trilogy, nor how well Peter May describes what seems indescribable. When Fin and Whistler are out late hiking in the hills one evening, they get separated. The lightning decides Fin – go home.
“The thunder that followed immediately was so directly overhead that it felt like a physical blow. And then the rain came. Out of nowhere. Sweeping suddenly down the valley in a blinding mist, the first exhalation of the storm. Hail was whipped into Fin’s face by a wind whose sudden increase in force very nearly knocked him off his feet. He turned and began to blunder back the way he had come.
Within minutes he had totally lost his sense of direction. Visibility was zero. He could see only in those brief moments when the lightning came. And then he stumbled forward with a memory of the next few yards held briefly in his mind, until his confidence wavered and he stopped, waiting for the next explosion of light.
Very quickly he realized that he was going up rather than down. But when he turned towards the descent he had no belief that it was taking him in the right direction.
The rain whipped relentlessly into his face, finding its way beneath his jacket at the cuffs and neck. He wasn’t wearing waterproof overtrousers, so his jeans were quickly sodden and heavy.”
He is hopelessly lost.
I cannot imagine being out in the weather that these people live with so much of the time, but I do love the people.
I enjoyed meeting the young adults that these (mostly) boys were before seeing them again in this story. There is a new book in the trilogy, The Black Loch, #4, which I look forward to reading soon.
My review of The Black House (Lewis Trilogy #1)
My review of The Lewis Man (Lewis Trilogy #2)
July 17, 2025
Отлично премерен и навременен край на серията за тайните на остров Люис. Все пак, колко ли кирливи ризи могат да се изкарат от толкова малко по площ и население място? :)
Фин се е завърнал на острова окончателно, но миналото му крие още загадки за разрешаване. И когато водата в едно езеро внезапно изчезва и на дъното му лъсва потопен преди 17 години малък самолет, част от призраците стават твърде реални.
За голяма моя изненада се оказва ,че той е имал още един много близък приятел, за който не е споменато нищо в предишните две книги. А му е спасил живота на два пъти, както на времето прадядо му е спасил живота на дядото на Фин. И нещата се усложняват отново...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMY_Iol...
Ето и снимки на прочутите шахматни фигури, изрязани от моржова и китова кост през 12 век в Трондхайм, Норвегия. Да науча за тях и да ги видя, ми е едно от най-ценните неща от описаните в книгите случки и истории.
Трилогията на Мей е чудесна и с нетърпение очаквам да се запозная с останалото му творчество!
Цитат:
"Това е един от миговете в моя живот, който съм превъртал безброй пъти в ума си. И всеки път ѝ връщам усмивката и казвам нещо находчиво, което я спечелва начаса. Колко умни можем да бъдем във въображението си, колко уверени и чаровни, когато е вече твърде късно!"
Фин се е завърнал на острова окончателно, но миналото му крие още загадки за разрешаване. И когато водата в едно езеро внезапно изчезва и на дъното му лъсва потопен преди 17 години малък самолет, част от призраците стават твърде реални.
За голяма моя изненада се оказва ,че той е имал още един много близък приятел, за който не е споменато нищо в предишните две книги. А му е спасил живота на два пъти, както на времето прадядо му е спасил живота на дядото на Фин. И нещата се усложняват отново...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMY_Iol...
Ето и снимки на прочутите шахматни фигури, изрязани от моржова и китова кост през 12 век в Трондхайм, Норвегия. Да науча за тях и да ги видя, ми е едно от най-ценните неща от описаните в книгите случки и истории.
Трилогията на Мей е чудесна и с нетърпение очаквам да се запозная с останалото му творчество!
Цитат:
"Това е един от миговете в моя живот, който съм превъртал безброй пъти в ума си. И всеки път ѝ връщам усмивката и казвам нещо находчиво, което я спечелва начаса. Колко умни можем да бъдем във въображението си, колко уверени и чаровни, когато е вече твърде късно!"
February 9, 2018
With ex-Detective Inspector Fin Macleod once again living permanently on the Isle of Lewis, it wasn’t long before he re-connected with his old childhood friend, Whistler Macaskill. The carefree days of their youth were over shadowed by the poachers in the area; Fin’s new job was to investigate the illegal activity and catch them. But the night the two were high up on the mountains in a terrible storm, was the night of what was known as a “Bog Burst” when the loch they were overlooking drained down into the valley – the small light plane which was lying at the bottom of the loch looked terribly familiar…
Roddy Mackenzie, musician and friend to both Fin and Whistler, had gone missing seventeen years prior. It seemed he’d finally been found but Fin, although in shock, registered something more unsettling on Whistler’s face. Fin was determined to discover what Whistler was keeping to himself, also how and why Roddy died. Secrets, lies, anger and betrayal – was it possible for Fin to discover the truth? And what would be the outcome if he did?
The Chessmen is the third and final in the Lewis Trilogy and I’m sad it’s over. Another gripping and intense crime thriller set in the vast and remote Isle of Lewis; the story of the Lewis Chessmen intrigued me. Seventy eight chessmen, which – hence the title. I thoroughly enjoy this author’s work each and every time I read him, and highly recommend The Chessmen (after The Blackhouse #1, and The Lewis Man #2)
Roddy Mackenzie, musician and friend to both Fin and Whistler, had gone missing seventeen years prior. It seemed he’d finally been found but Fin, although in shock, registered something more unsettling on Whistler’s face. Fin was determined to discover what Whistler was keeping to himself, also how and why Roddy died. Secrets, lies, anger and betrayal – was it possible for Fin to discover the truth? And what would be the outcome if he did?
The Chessmen is the third and final in the Lewis Trilogy and I’m sad it’s over. Another gripping and intense crime thriller set in the vast and remote Isle of Lewis; the story of the Lewis Chessmen intrigued me. Seventy eight chessmen, which – hence the title. I thoroughly enjoy this author’s work each and every time I read him, and highly recommend The Chessmen (after The Blackhouse #1, and The Lewis Man #2)
March 31, 2021
Retired detective, Fin Macleod was spending time with an old friend when they noticed a bog‐burst. All water in the small Loch was drained and at the bottom was a small aircraft that went missing almost two decades ago.
I'm giving 4 stars as I'm comparing this book to the first two. I think the flashbacks caused the loss of momentum to current events. It is still very good and Peter May is so talented when describing landscapes. It's breathtaking and as a reader I can feel as if I'm there!
Sigh, the thing about trilogy is you know it'll be over...and it has. 😭 Good bye Fin Macleod! I love this mystery collection by Peter May.
I'm giving 4 stars as I'm comparing this book to the first two. I think the flashbacks caused the loss of momentum to current events. It is still very good and Peter May is so talented when describing landscapes. It's breathtaking and as a reader I can feel as if I'm there!
Sigh, the thing about trilogy is you know it'll be over...and it has. 😭 Good bye Fin Macleod! I love this mystery collection by Peter May.
May 17, 2015
Book Review
Third in The Lewis Trilogy, The Chessmen brings us to the conclusion of the trilogy. This time, the crime bears some resemblance to the The Lewis Man, in that a cold case appears to have been unearthed as a small airplane bearing the body of a murdered musician is uncovered from a Lewis Island loch (lake) some seventeen years later.
What struck me in this reading as well as the previous novels is May's dedication to the art of writing a novel. The man spent five years on the island in order to write his trilogy, an outsider in a world where inhabitants would be suspicious of anyone inquiring into their lives (see links below pointing to some videos of that endeavor). This dedication comes across quite clearly in the beautiful passages that describe the Hebrides. There's an art to writing descriptive passages, to write them so that readers not familiar with the geography can quite clearly envision something with which they are not familiar and infuse such passages with delicate descriptions mirroring plot events to come. It comes across in the deep characterization and psychological motivations that spark the events in the novels so that the reader is mesmerized and being prepared (like food in a slow cooker) for the climactic ending. Masterful story-telling, in my opinion.
I've read some reviews where bringing in unknown characters, former friends of Fin's, disconcerted some readers as they'd have preferred the characters mentioned in the first two in the trilogy. This concept of character focus, according to the author, was a deliberate move as he wanted to focus the second and third in the trilogy on other persons from Fin's life, to move the focus away from Fin's story as it were while maintaining his narrative voice. To accomplish this, I've noted Peter May's use of cold cases to unearth these formerly unknown childhood strings into Fin's life as each cold case places the focus on a different set of characters from Fin's life. Personally, this did not bother me at all. On the contrary, I thought it an excellent authorial device. Lewis Island and subsequent Hebrides islands, though a bubble set apart from the rest of the world, nevertheless are inhabited by a substantial number of people. Couple that with Fin's knowledge of a lot of it, to have introduced characters in previous books that were not directly tied to the crime would have been to needlessly introduce insignificant details that would have detracted, rather than add to the novels in question. Whistler for example, a significant character in this novel, had no close ties to Artrair the main adversary in The Blackhouse, nor had he close ties to the characters in the second, given his solitary life. Primary characters throughout the three novels remain, of course, part of this novel.
I'm happy with this being a trilogy. All good things must come to an end (there are some series authors that might learn from this). I will be interested to see how I'll receive some of May's other books as I intend to read them. With some trepidation, I might add. Too often it is the case that authors known for an excellent series fall flat when attempting something else. We'll see.
Here are some links to videos you might be interested in after reading this trilogy along with some samples of Gaelic music. I do not recommend viewing these before a reading, as inevitably you will lose some of the magic in May's descriptive prose with preconceived notions because of having viewed the videos first. I’ve also included the link to a video from which May took his characterization of the formidable “Whistler”.
The award winning video that inspired the Whistler character.
The Blackhouse - the story behind the publication
Peter's research video from the Isle of Lewis
Peter's research video for the The Lewis Man
Book trailer for The Lewis Man
Peter's research video for The Chessmen
Peter May interview on The Blackhouse
Series review
The Lewis Man Trilogy is a triumvirate of crime novels coalescing the life of Fin Macleod, an Edinburgh Scottish policeman, who upon his return to the island of his birth some eighteen years later discovers he has in many ways never left Lewis Island. If you are so inclined to pick up this crime series be prepared for an extraordinary journey into Gealic culture: its remoteness from mainland life, its Gaelic music, customs, lifestyles, religion, and its fascinating look into the Hebrides islands' psychology and people.
Haunting in its retrospective, the trilogy moves its readers into the harsh conditions that encompass Fin's youth growing up on Lewis Island and onward into his life as as a policeman who answers the call of the Hebrides where his Gaelic roots make him the obvious guy for the job to uncover the truth behind a heinous murder that has taken place on Lewis Island. The Blackhouse marks the return of Fin MacLeod to his birthplace, a move marked with significant trepidation on Fin's part. He never intended such a return, did not wish it, were it not for suspicious similarities to a murder he was investigating in Edinburgh. What follows is an intricate exposition across three books where the personal reasons of why Fin MacLeod left the island and refused to return to it are studied and laid bare for Peter May’s readers.
The trilogy encompasses three crimes, each the focus of its respective novel. Briefly, the first involves the discovery of a disemboweled man hanging from the rafters of a boat house on Lewis Island. The second focuses on the discovery of a young man found pickled and preserved in the bogs some fifty years later, again on Lewis Island. The third takes place when a loch (lake) on Lewis Island suddenly drains itself of all water only to reveal a long submerged airplane containing the body of a famous Gaelic musician who had mysteriously disappeared some seventeen years earlier.
Critical to an understanding of the trilogy is that the Hebrides is presented as a sort of bubble in which nothing changes. It is to this bubble that Fin, who was determined to escape the harsh island life to go to university in Glasgow, returns eighteen years later in the first of the triumvirate novels. Marked with tragedy, Fin’s life orbits forward by this very return to his roots. The first centers itself around Fin MacLeod, the second and third novels though told from Fin’s perspective center themselves on the characters from Fin’s childhood, characters who continue to live unchanged within the bubble. Fin, no longer a policeman but with the heart of an inspector, slowly unravels the mysteries in full concert with his boyhood friends, lovers and foes. The powerful psychology of its characters, the delicate tapestry and ethnographic study of the Hebrides, the beautiful and descriptive passages that open the imagination of its readers, and the incredible story that is unveiled throughout the three novels make this trilogy one of the best I’ve read.
Third in The Lewis Trilogy, The Chessmen brings us to the conclusion of the trilogy. This time, the crime bears some resemblance to the The Lewis Man, in that a cold case appears to have been unearthed as a small airplane bearing the body of a murdered musician is uncovered from a Lewis Island loch (lake) some seventeen years later.
What struck me in this reading as well as the previous novels is May's dedication to the art of writing a novel. The man spent five years on the island in order to write his trilogy, an outsider in a world where inhabitants would be suspicious of anyone inquiring into their lives (see links below pointing to some videos of that endeavor). This dedication comes across quite clearly in the beautiful passages that describe the Hebrides. There's an art to writing descriptive passages, to write them so that readers not familiar with the geography can quite clearly envision something with which they are not familiar and infuse such passages with delicate descriptions mirroring plot events to come. It comes across in the deep characterization and psychological motivations that spark the events in the novels so that the reader is mesmerized and being prepared (like food in a slow cooker) for the climactic ending. Masterful story-telling, in my opinion.
I've read some reviews where bringing in unknown characters, former friends of Fin's, disconcerted some readers as they'd have preferred the characters mentioned in the first two in the trilogy. This concept of character focus, according to the author, was a deliberate move as he wanted to focus the second and third in the trilogy on other persons from Fin's life, to move the focus away from Fin's story as it were while maintaining his narrative voice. To accomplish this, I've noted Peter May's use of cold cases to unearth these formerly unknown childhood strings into Fin's life as each cold case places the focus on a different set of characters from Fin's life. Personally, this did not bother me at all. On the contrary, I thought it an excellent authorial device. Lewis Island and subsequent Hebrides islands, though a bubble set apart from the rest of the world, nevertheless are inhabited by a substantial number of people. Couple that with Fin's knowledge of a lot of it, to have introduced characters in previous books that were not directly tied to the crime would have been to needlessly introduce insignificant details that would have detracted, rather than add to the novels in question. Whistler for example, a significant character in this novel, had no close ties to Artrair the main adversary in The Blackhouse, nor had he close ties to the characters in the second, given his solitary life. Primary characters throughout the three novels remain, of course, part of this novel.
I'm happy with this being a trilogy. All good things must come to an end (there are some series authors that might learn from this). I will be interested to see how I'll receive some of May's other books as I intend to read them. With some trepidation, I might add. Too often it is the case that authors known for an excellent series fall flat when attempting something else. We'll see.
Here are some links to videos you might be interested in after reading this trilogy along with some samples of Gaelic music. I do not recommend viewing these before a reading, as inevitably you will lose some of the magic in May's descriptive prose with preconceived notions because of having viewed the videos first. I’ve also included the link to a video from which May took his characterization of the formidable “Whistler”.
The award winning video that inspired the Whistler character.
The Blackhouse - the story behind the publication
Peter's research video from the Isle of Lewis
Peter's research video for the The Lewis Man
Book trailer for The Lewis Man
Peter's research video for The Chessmen
Peter May interview on The Blackhouse
Series review
The Lewis Man Trilogy is a triumvirate of crime novels coalescing the life of Fin Macleod, an Edinburgh Scottish policeman, who upon his return to the island of his birth some eighteen years later discovers he has in many ways never left Lewis Island. If you are so inclined to pick up this crime series be prepared for an extraordinary journey into Gealic culture: its remoteness from mainland life, its Gaelic music, customs, lifestyles, religion, and its fascinating look into the Hebrides islands' psychology and people.
Haunting in its retrospective, the trilogy moves its readers into the harsh conditions that encompass Fin's youth growing up on Lewis Island and onward into his life as as a policeman who answers the call of the Hebrides where his Gaelic roots make him the obvious guy for the job to uncover the truth behind a heinous murder that has taken place on Lewis Island. The Blackhouse marks the return of Fin MacLeod to his birthplace, a move marked with significant trepidation on Fin's part. He never intended such a return, did not wish it, were it not for suspicious similarities to a murder he was investigating in Edinburgh. What follows is an intricate exposition across three books where the personal reasons of why Fin MacLeod left the island and refused to return to it are studied and laid bare for Peter May’s readers.
The trilogy encompasses three crimes, each the focus of its respective novel. Briefly, the first involves the discovery of a disemboweled man hanging from the rafters of a boat house on Lewis Island. The second focuses on the discovery of a young man found pickled and preserved in the bogs some fifty years later, again on Lewis Island. The third takes place when a loch (lake) on Lewis Island suddenly drains itself of all water only to reveal a long submerged airplane containing the body of a famous Gaelic musician who had mysteriously disappeared some seventeen years earlier.
Critical to an understanding of the trilogy is that the Hebrides is presented as a sort of bubble in which nothing changes. It is to this bubble that Fin, who was determined to escape the harsh island life to go to university in Glasgow, returns eighteen years later in the first of the triumvirate novels. Marked with tragedy, Fin’s life orbits forward by this very return to his roots. The first centers itself around Fin MacLeod, the second and third novels though told from Fin’s perspective center themselves on the characters from Fin’s childhood, characters who continue to live unchanged within the bubble. Fin, no longer a policeman but with the heart of an inspector, slowly unravels the mysteries in full concert with his boyhood friends, lovers and foes. The powerful psychology of its characters, the delicate tapestry and ethnographic study of the Hebrides, the beautiful and descriptive passages that open the imagination of its readers, and the incredible story that is unveiled throughout the three novels make this trilogy one of the best I’ve read.
February 4, 2018
The Chessmen has much of what made the first two books of this series worth reading. The wildly beautiful setting and the atmospheric overtones that accompany each scene keep it from being less than three stars, but I’m sad to report that it fell short in most other ways. It surprises me how much I dislike this book in comparison to its predecessors.
The best part of this story is also the most confounding: Fin’s friendship with Whistler. Whistler is a larger-than-life character, and the emotional ties between him and Fin are palpable in the flashbacks to their teenage years on the island when they were a huge part of each other’s lives. I enjoyed those scenes quite a bit. So why is this confounding? Because there was nary a mention of Whistler in either of the first two books. Nary a mention, even, of any other members of the band who were featured so prominently here. It's like they were conjured up and fit retroactively into Fin's youth.
A recurring feature of May’s writing that doesn’t sit well with me is that he obviously has no use for strong women in his storylines, and it’s taken to a whole new level in The Chessmen. The entirety of Marsaili’s brief appearances are spent as “pale and sad,” or exhibiting jealousy toward another woman from Fin’s past. In fact, the only woman with a backbone in this story, Mairead, is described ad nauseam as utterly alluring and seductive, and knowingly causes strife between her male bandmates. She is made to be desirable but not likeable. What I’m trying to say is that these women are cliched to a painful degree. I know this might not bother other readers, many won’t even notice it, but I personally have no more time for it.
It’s been an interesting trilogy but there will be no more May for me.
The best part of this story is also the most confounding: Fin’s friendship with Whistler. Whistler is a larger-than-life character, and the emotional ties between him and Fin are palpable in the flashbacks to their teenage years on the island when they were a huge part of each other’s lives. I enjoyed those scenes quite a bit. So why is this confounding? Because there was nary a mention of Whistler in either of the first two books. Nary a mention, even, of any other members of the band who were featured so prominently here. It's like they were conjured up and fit retroactively into Fin's youth.
A recurring feature of May’s writing that doesn’t sit well with me is that he obviously has no use for strong women in his storylines, and it’s taken to a whole new level in The Chessmen. The entirety of Marsaili’s brief appearances are spent as “pale and sad,” or exhibiting jealousy toward another woman from Fin’s past. In fact, the only woman with a backbone in this story, Mairead, is described ad nauseam as utterly alluring and seductive, and knowingly causes strife between her male bandmates. She is made to be desirable but not likeable. What I’m trying to say is that these women are cliched to a painful degree. I know this might not bother other readers, many won’t even notice it, but I personally have no more time for it.
It’s been an interesting trilogy but there will be no more May for me.
January 9, 2016
Fin Macleod is working as a head security on an estate on Lewis. He is in charge of investigating illegal game-hunting and this brings him at a collision course with an old friend of his Whistler Macaskill a local poacher. The something unexpected happens, the dead body of musician and an old friend to both Fin and Whistler is discovered in an airplane in a lake.
The first two books in this series are truly great and I've been looking forward to reading the last book in the trilogy and it was great to once again return to the isle of Lewis and Fin Macleod. But I didn't find the case in this book as interesting as the last two books, the finding of dead musician and the secrets that this reveal were just not intriguing enough I think. Don't take me wrong the book was good, just the case wasn't surprising enough. But the ending did have a great big surprise that I didn't expect, but that was more to do with something relevant to the previous book.
All and all not as superb as the previous two books, still enjoyable to read and I quite liked Whistler. I do wish that Peter May will write more books about Fin Macleod even though this book is the last in the trilogy.
The first two books in this series are truly great and I've been looking forward to reading the last book in the trilogy and it was great to once again return to the isle of Lewis and Fin Macleod. But I didn't find the case in this book as interesting as the last two books, the finding of dead musician and the secrets that this reveal were just not intriguing enough I think. Don't take me wrong the book was good, just the case wasn't surprising enough. But the ending did have a great big surprise that I didn't expect, but that was more to do with something relevant to the previous book.
All and all not as superb as the previous two books, still enjoyable to read and I quite liked Whistler. I do wish that Peter May will write more books about Fin Macleod even though this book is the last in the trilogy.
April 17, 2020
[7/10]
Ultima Thule, the end of the world, still exerts a strong fascination for me, a reminder of early childhood reads from Jules Verne or famous navigators. In Europe, heading into the sunset, the island of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, or Eilean Leodhais in the local Gaelic language, is just about as far as you can go. One day, I really hope I will manage to stand on its windblown, ancient granite cliffs, but in the meantime I have to rely on armchair travels, like this series written by Peter May.
The Chessmen is the third and final episode of the trilogy, nominally a crime fiction tale describing a murder investigation carried out by Fionlagh Macleod, a local man who returns to his village of Ness after working as a police inspector in Edinburgh. While these crime stories are all right in their development, the real attraction of the series is in the immersive experience of the hardships and emotional turmoil of a closely knit community that has a rich cultural heritage.
This is achieved mostly through the use of flashbacks, as each of the episodes is somehow leading back to events that are decades old: Fin’s childhood in the first book, his old father-in-law reminiscences in the second, and the college years working for a Celtic traditional band in this one. The construction has advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, it allows the author to really flesh out his characters and to explore in detail that cultural heritage that made me pick up the books. On the other hand, I’m really glad this is the final book in the series, because the device has become not only obvious, but also exhausted. I wasn’t as enchanted with this final trip, despite having an interest in geology ( A bizarre and brutal landscape littered with the spoil of ice explosions millions of years old. ), traditional Celtic music and hiking, all of which play a major role in the novel. But from the discovery of a dead body more than two decades old to the expected extensive flashbacks, I was visited by a strong feeling of deja-vu: been there, done that, got the T-shirt attitude.
Still, it was a fast and intriguing book, with plenty of local colour and personal melodrama : strong friendships between rugged men, boys fighting over the attention of a comely redhead lead singer, fist-fights, motorcycle races, storms, angsty teenagers and religious infighting. Some promising side stories fizzled out , but in the end it was a decent closure for the series and the author deserves praise for not overstaying his welcome and pushing the premise into a 20+ books deal.
I didn’t bookmark any particular passage, either because I was too busy reading or because I was becoming jaded with the setting, but I would still like to mention the good use the author makes of two local events in the history of Lewis Island : the discovery of the Norse chessmen in the XIX century, and the Iolaire disaster at the Beasts of Holm on the first January 1919. Instead of simply delivering interesting trivia, Mr. May is well capable of capturing the emotional impact of such events in the lives of the locals and to include them as an integral part of his plot.
I’m not sure when I will pick the next novel or series by Peter May. I liked these Lewis books well enough, more for the setting and the characters than for the crime aspects. “Entry Island” sounds promising though.
July 2, 2021
Poisoning Secrets
Fin Macleod is back to the beautiful Lewis island — what used to be the claustrophobic residence of his youth is now his present home and a potential starting point for an eventually auspicious future.
Fin is now working as a head security in a private estate — he was hired due to the constant practice of poaching in the property.
However, since he used to be a police detective, murdered corpses keep stalking him and soon he’ll embrace another case of murder (once a cop, always a cop 😜)
As usual, the investigation will dig up past secrets that, if revealed, will ruin the present and jeopardize the future — like in the previous installments of this trilogy, we feel a strong interaction between past and present…
Fin Macleod is back to the beautiful Lewis island — what used to be the claustrophobic residence of his youth is now his present home and a potential starting point for an eventually auspicious future.
Fin is now working as a head security in a private estate — he was hired due to the constant practice of poaching in the property.
However, since he used to be a police detective, murdered corpses keep stalking him and soon he’ll embrace another case of murder (once a cop, always a cop 😜)
As usual, the investigation will dig up past secrets that, if revealed, will ruin the present and jeopardize the future — like in the previous installments of this trilogy, we feel a strong interaction between past and present…
August 3, 2015
This final book of the Lewis Trilogy accomplishes a lot in bringing some closure to many, though not all, story threads begun in The Blackhouse. As was true with the first two books, while there are mysteries both old and new that require investigation, the essence of The Lewis Men is once again the location and the people of the Hebrides, most especially the Isle of Lewis,a physically lonely and lonesome spot at the western-most edge of Europe. Buffeted by the wind and water off the Atlantic, their ongoing effects result in a harsh life.
Once again, Fin MacLeod is at the center of the story, the mystery, the hunt, the ultimate investigation. This time, a natural event discloses a downed plane in what had been a deep lake. Now uncovered, it reveals a body and opens a case almost 20 years cold. As Fin lived on the island at the time and knew its residents, we are introduced to added cast members from his life.
But what continues to capture me as much as the details of the past history are the continuing wonderful descriptions of the environment.
He felt an enormous sense of relief as he drove
across the wide open spaces of the Barvas moor, like
a weight lifted from his shoulders...The sky ahead
reflected his mood, gray breaking to blue, flashes of
sunlight falling in dazzling patches on distant
tracts of peat bog scarred by generations of cutting.
Colour appeared all across the moor with the change
of light, gold and purple, the wind rising now to
whip through the long grasses and usher in cooler,
brighter weather. (p 220)
and here:
The sky over the sands of Traigh Uige was painted
on. Great fat brushstrokes of pale grey and cream.
The wind was brisk and cool and blew through the last
of the coastal tormentil, shrivelling its yellow
petals like the first breath of winter. (p 225)
There are many such descriptions of varying length which allow the reader to see the landscape and feel its impact. It is an equal character in these novels.
I continue to strongly recommend these novels but do advise they should be read in order.
Addendum: I'm adding a link to another review by a fellow GR member, Harry. He also discusses the entire trilogy.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Once again, Fin MacLeod is at the center of the story, the mystery, the hunt, the ultimate investigation. This time, a natural event discloses a downed plane in what had been a deep lake. Now uncovered, it reveals a body and opens a case almost 20 years cold. As Fin lived on the island at the time and knew its residents, we are introduced to added cast members from his life.
But what continues to capture me as much as the details of the past history are the continuing wonderful descriptions of the environment.
He felt an enormous sense of relief as he drove
across the wide open spaces of the Barvas moor, like
a weight lifted from his shoulders...The sky ahead
reflected his mood, gray breaking to blue, flashes of
sunlight falling in dazzling patches on distant
tracts of peat bog scarred by generations of cutting.
Colour appeared all across the moor with the change
of light, gold and purple, the wind rising now to
whip through the long grasses and usher in cooler,
brighter weather. (p 220)
and here:
The sky over the sands of Traigh Uige was painted
on. Great fat brushstrokes of pale grey and cream.
The wind was brisk and cool and blew through the last
of the coastal tormentil, shrivelling its yellow
petals like the first breath of winter. (p 225)
There are many such descriptions of varying length which allow the reader to see the landscape and feel its impact. It is an equal character in these novels.
I continue to strongly recommend these novels but do advise they should be read in order.
Addendum: I'm adding a link to another review by a fellow GR member, Harry. He also discusses the entire trilogy.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
April 21, 2024
This is the third book in Peter May’s Lewis Trilogy. Old school friends Fin Macleod and Whistler Macaskill discover a small aeroplane in a remote loch that’s dried up suddenly during an unusually hot and dry summer in the Isle of Lewis. Are the remains of the pilot they find those of Roddy Mackenzie, the mercurial leader of a successful Celtic rock band, who went missing 17 years ago in his plane?
Although this is the beginning of the plot of this murder mystery, most of the book is actually bittersweet reminiscences of the childhood and youth of Whistler, who’s lived on the island all his life, and Fin, who’s returned after many years as a detective in Edinburgh, as well as a large (and sometimes confusing) cast of protagonists. These reminiscences are very convincingly written and I was sure that May must come from Lewis, only to find that he actually hails from Glasgow, when I looked him up. Also I could have sworn that he knew the Scottish Gaelic language (not impossible of course), which is still used widely on Lewis, as he conjures up a romantic (if unpronounceable!) Celtic ambiance convincingly. Half-way through the book I realised that there is a Gaelic glossary right at the end, including a guide on pronunciation!
The Lewis chessmen in the title refer to a beautiful and very distinctive 12th century Viking set, carved out of walrus ivory, probably in the cathedral workshops at Trondheim, and found in 1831 in Uig Bay on the Isle of Lewis, in the Outer Hebrides, off the northwestern coast off Scotland, where this novel is set.
Verdict: I liked the very well researched and authentic-sounding feel of island life in the Hebrides, very believable and vivid characters, as well as the way that the melancholy memories of the protagonists’ youth are described. I didn’t think the murder mystery part of the book was very successfully realised, though. I think May could ditch the crime genre and try something more ambitious. He certainly has the insights and the writerly ability. Maybe he has written beyond crime fiction already: I must find out!
Although this is the beginning of the plot of this murder mystery, most of the book is actually bittersweet reminiscences of the childhood and youth of Whistler, who’s lived on the island all his life, and Fin, who’s returned after many years as a detective in Edinburgh, as well as a large (and sometimes confusing) cast of protagonists. These reminiscences are very convincingly written and I was sure that May must come from Lewis, only to find that he actually hails from Glasgow, when I looked him up. Also I could have sworn that he knew the Scottish Gaelic language (not impossible of course), which is still used widely on Lewis, as he conjures up a romantic (if unpronounceable!) Celtic ambiance convincingly. Half-way through the book I realised that there is a Gaelic glossary right at the end, including a guide on pronunciation!
The Lewis chessmen in the title refer to a beautiful and very distinctive 12th century Viking set, carved out of walrus ivory, probably in the cathedral workshops at Trondheim, and found in 1831 in Uig Bay on the Isle of Lewis, in the Outer Hebrides, off the northwestern coast off Scotland, where this novel is set.
Verdict: I liked the very well researched and authentic-sounding feel of island life in the Hebrides, very believable and vivid characters, as well as the way that the melancholy memories of the protagonists’ youth are described. I didn’t think the murder mystery part of the book was very successfully realised, though. I think May could ditch the crime genre and try something more ambitious. He certainly has the insights and the writerly ability. Maybe he has written beyond crime fiction already: I must find out!
February 2, 2014
The least of the three books and I can only reiterate what other reviewers here have commented on. Most of them have it spot on.
1. Nowhere in the previous two books did we see or hear of the character called Whistler. Considering the friendship with Fin, you'd think it would've been at least touched upon. He was far too important in Fin's life to be dragged up now.
2. Same with the character of Mairead. She's the lead singer of a world famous Celtic rock band that Fin once roadied for (and known since he was a teenager) and he's never mentioned her or the band before? Considering he had a fling with her too? No, not buying that. People like that simply don't come out of the blue in your life's recounting.
3. That ending with Donald...I've reduced the score down by one star just for that. It's a dreadful contrivance.
But in all, the writing is good and the depictions of these windswept Scottish islands is vivid, and they do come across as the end of the world that many thought they once were.
A disappointing (and aggravating) end to a very good trilogy.
1. Nowhere in the previous two books did we see or hear of the character called Whistler. Considering the friendship with Fin, you'd think it would've been at least touched upon. He was far too important in Fin's life to be dragged up now.
2. Same with the character of Mairead. She's the lead singer of a world famous Celtic rock band that Fin once roadied for (and known since he was a teenager) and he's never mentioned her or the band before? Considering he had a fling with her too? No, not buying that. People like that simply don't come out of the blue in your life's recounting.
3. That ending with Donald...I've reduced the score down by one star just for that. It's a dreadful contrivance.
But in all, the writing is good and the depictions of these windswept Scottish islands is vivid, and they do come across as the end of the world that many thought they once were.
A disappointing (and aggravating) end to a very good trilogy.
August 12, 2018
Fin and Donald stood watching the car as it rounded the bend where the single-track road dipped towards the Crobost Stores and the main road that would take them to Stornoway. This time tomorrow night their children would be in Glasgow, embarking on their new lives, leaving their parents behind to come to terms with the mess they’d made of theirs.
In the third book of the Lewis Trilogy, The Reverend Donald Murray is facing the Judicial Committee of the Free Church of Scotland for the events that took place on Eriskay, while his daughter Donna and Fin’s son Fionnlagh have moved to Glasgow to study, leaving their baby in the care of Fin and his childhood sweetheart, Marsaili. Fin has left the police force and is now contracted as head of security to an estate to solve the problem of salmon poachers.
With poaching a tradition in the Outer Hebrides, this brings him into contact with childhood friend, “Whistler”, a saturnine man living in a blackhouse in the mountains south-west of Lewis for a peppercorn rent, gaining money as a skilled carver of wood, creating a large-scale set of chess figures based on the Viking chess pieces originally found in the Outer Hebrides and now housed at the London Museum and in Edinburgh.
Whistler is under threat of eviction by the estate owner’s son, for non-payment of rent; there’s a truculent teenage daughter to contend with, and when Fin tries to catch up with Whistler in the mountains they are caught in a fierce storm at night, taking refuge in a “beehive” shelter that Whistler has restored. While the storm had abated the pair experience a shuddering like an earthquake and in the morning they find that a nearby loch has emptied through the gneiss, revealing a light plane in the mud. They struggle to the plane and Fin opens the door to the cockpit to find a body, he realises it is a crime scene…
The Piper Comanche was owned by Roddy, one of main players of Celtic rock band Sòlas formed in Stornoway during their teenage years, a band they all had links to in one form or another. The plane went missing seventeen years earlier, presumed lost at sea. Now the story takes on two levels, the present investigation (written in the third person), and Fin’s memories (written in the first person) in which he is dogged by doubts and nagging guilt, largely unfounded as events unfolded that he was unaware of, and of circumstances beyond his control.
Village after village drifted past Fin’s windows in the rain. Wet and dark, and stretched out along the road like so many little boxes strung on a thread, treeless and naked, exposed to the elements. Only a few hardy shrubs grew in the peaty soil where hopeful souls had made vain attempts to hack gardens and lawns out of unyielding moorland.
No author captures the weather, the bleakness of the landscape and way of life of the islanders better than Peter May. There is also a map to orient the reader.
A number of guests had arrived with chickens and rabbits for the meal. You never took a dead animal to a wedding, so they had to be killed, and plucked or skinned, then gutted and cooked. But there was no hurry, since no one would be leaving until the following morning.
Of the three books I found The Chessmen the hardest to read, the quote in the in cover from The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam summing up life completely. Fin is a man conflicted, and there is no happy ever after ending, just another tragedy on an island that has faced more than its share, and finally a sense of closure.
Verdict: atmospheric.
In the third book of the Lewis Trilogy, The Reverend Donald Murray is facing the Judicial Committee of the Free Church of Scotland for the events that took place on Eriskay, while his daughter Donna and Fin’s son Fionnlagh have moved to Glasgow to study, leaving their baby in the care of Fin and his childhood sweetheart, Marsaili. Fin has left the police force and is now contracted as head of security to an estate to solve the problem of salmon poachers.
With poaching a tradition in the Outer Hebrides, this brings him into contact with childhood friend, “Whistler”, a saturnine man living in a blackhouse in the mountains south-west of Lewis for a peppercorn rent, gaining money as a skilled carver of wood, creating a large-scale set of chess figures based on the Viking chess pieces originally found in the Outer Hebrides and now housed at the London Museum and in Edinburgh.
Whistler is under threat of eviction by the estate owner’s son, for non-payment of rent; there’s a truculent teenage daughter to contend with, and when Fin tries to catch up with Whistler in the mountains they are caught in a fierce storm at night, taking refuge in a “beehive” shelter that Whistler has restored. While the storm had abated the pair experience a shuddering like an earthquake and in the morning they find that a nearby loch has emptied through the gneiss, revealing a light plane in the mud. They struggle to the plane and Fin opens the door to the cockpit to find a body, he realises it is a crime scene…
The Piper Comanche was owned by Roddy, one of main players of Celtic rock band Sòlas formed in Stornoway during their teenage years, a band they all had links to in one form or another. The plane went missing seventeen years earlier, presumed lost at sea. Now the story takes on two levels, the present investigation (written in the third person), and Fin’s memories (written in the first person) in which he is dogged by doubts and nagging guilt, largely unfounded as events unfolded that he was unaware of, and of circumstances beyond his control.
Village after village drifted past Fin’s windows in the rain. Wet and dark, and stretched out along the road like so many little boxes strung on a thread, treeless and naked, exposed to the elements. Only a few hardy shrubs grew in the peaty soil where hopeful souls had made vain attempts to hack gardens and lawns out of unyielding moorland.
No author captures the weather, the bleakness of the landscape and way of life of the islanders better than Peter May. There is also a map to orient the reader.
A number of guests had arrived with chickens and rabbits for the meal. You never took a dead animal to a wedding, so they had to be killed, and plucked or skinned, then gutted and cooked. But there was no hurry, since no one would be leaving until the following morning.
Of the three books I found The Chessmen the hardest to read, the quote in the in cover from The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam summing up life completely. Fin is a man conflicted, and there is no happy ever after ending, just another tragedy on an island that has faced more than its share, and finally a sense of closure.
Verdict: atmospheric.
January 5, 2016
This is the 3rd book starring Fin Macleod, this time he has taken on the job of head security for the estate on his birth island. His main job is sussing out who is poaching the salmon on the island into extinction. Well rest assured we never find out in this book.
While the previous books did tell you something about the history of Isles and the various parties who played a large role in their history, this one seems to be more about Fins teenage & College years and a music-band and its role in Macleods' life.
It all starts when we open with Fin & his best youth friend finding an airplane in a Loch that has disappeared, it contents that is, you know the water. We then get the story told in flashback and present day until we get the solution.
The whole book while very readable felt more like an afterword on Fin and his world then the closing part of a trilogy. While numbers 1 & 2 were very good written thrillers with some shocking truths about island life and its history this lacks some historical merit and the story kind of wanders and nobody comes out looking good.
A disappointing conclusion to two excellent novels in this trilogy. But still a fairly good read. I still have his last book laying around waiting for me so I remain a reader of May his books.
While the previous books did tell you something about the history of Isles and the various parties who played a large role in their history, this one seems to be more about Fins teenage & College years and a music-band and its role in Macleods' life.
It all starts when we open with Fin & his best youth friend finding an airplane in a Loch that has disappeared, it contents that is, you know the water. We then get the story told in flashback and present day until we get the solution.
The whole book while very readable felt more like an afterword on Fin and his world then the closing part of a trilogy. While numbers 1 & 2 were very good written thrillers with some shocking truths about island life and its history this lacks some historical merit and the story kind of wanders and nobody comes out looking good.
A disappointing conclusion to two excellent novels in this trilogy. But still a fairly good read. I still have his last book laying around waiting for me so I remain a reader of May his books.
October 8, 2024
The Chessmen is the third (but not last!) book in the Lewis Trilogy by award-winning British journalist and author, Peter May. It seems Fin Macleod is back on Lewis for good: he’s repairing his parents’ croft house, connecting with the son he didn’t know about, reconnecting with his first love, and he has a job as head of security on the Red River Estate, where his remit is to solve their burgeoning problem with poaching.
His first task is to talk sense into Whistler (John Angus) Macaskill, whose small scale poaching (one for the pot) was tolerated by Sir John Wooldridge, but makes him a prime target for the man’s son, the snobbish and arrogant Jamie Wooldridge, now in charge.
Whistler is a bit of an enigma: talented with the Celtic flute, freakishly intelligent but rejecting the opportunity to attend university, he lives in a tiny croft house on the estate, feeding himself off the land and water, and carving large replicas of the Lewis Chessmen for sale. But Jamie is now his landlord, and Whistler might be facing eviction after never paying a penny of rent. He’s also trying to get custody of his teenaged daughter, a challenge if he doesn’t clean up his act.
Where Fin catches up with him is the site of an overnight phenomenon that empties a loch and reveals a small private plane resting on its bed, with the body of a murdered man in the cockpit. The plane is their friend Roddy Mackenzie’s, who was, until his disappearance almost two decades earlier, a successful Celtic rock star.
What started as high school band Solas featured Whistler on the Celtic Flute, Roddy on keyboard, and Mairead Morrison on fiddle and vocals, among others. Fin spent some years as a roadie for them, along with Wooldridge estate manager, Kenny Maclean, while (now) Reverend Donald Murray was one-time manager. Relations between the various band members were often far from cordial, but would anyone have gone so far as to kill Roddy?
DS George Gunn asks him about Roddy, and Fin recalls their first encounter and the various issues and altercations that involved Roddy, Whistler, Mairead and other members of the group, and the liaisons that they were involved in as the group’s fame rose. The Inverness detectives want to question Whistler about the discovery of the plane, but he is being elusive. Surely he will turn up for Roddy’s (second) funeral?
But then there’s another murder, and Fin finds himself in a cell. Has it to do with Roddy’s murder? A photograph prompts a sudden recall that might be the answer to one death, if not both.
May gives the reader yet another outstanding dose of Scottish crime fiction, liberally sprinkled with gorgeous descriptive prose like: “He felt the wind fill his jacket and then his mouth, stealing his breath as the ground fell away beneath them to reveal a startling panorama of sun-washed land and water. Browns, pale blues, greens and purples faded into a shimmering distance at their feet.”
Also “The lull in the wake of the storm was over. The sunshine respite of this single day was already spent, and legions of dark clouds were assembling out on the western horizon, where the last dazzle of the dying sun spilled its gold on distant waters” and “The sky over the sands of Traigh Uige was painted on great fat brushstrokes of pale green and cream. The wind was brisk and cool and blew through the last of the coastal tormentil, shrivelling yellow petals like the first breath of winter.
And he gives Fin a wonderfully stirring speech supporting his friend during a trial by churchmen. Readers will be pleased to learn that a fourth instalment of this excellent trilogy now exists: The Black Loch will be an automatic addition to many a TBR. Unsurpassed.
His first task is to talk sense into Whistler (John Angus) Macaskill, whose small scale poaching (one for the pot) was tolerated by Sir John Wooldridge, but makes him a prime target for the man’s son, the snobbish and arrogant Jamie Wooldridge, now in charge.
Whistler is a bit of an enigma: talented with the Celtic flute, freakishly intelligent but rejecting the opportunity to attend university, he lives in a tiny croft house on the estate, feeding himself off the land and water, and carving large replicas of the Lewis Chessmen for sale. But Jamie is now his landlord, and Whistler might be facing eviction after never paying a penny of rent. He’s also trying to get custody of his teenaged daughter, a challenge if he doesn’t clean up his act.
Where Fin catches up with him is the site of an overnight phenomenon that empties a loch and reveals a small private plane resting on its bed, with the body of a murdered man in the cockpit. The plane is their friend Roddy Mackenzie’s, who was, until his disappearance almost two decades earlier, a successful Celtic rock star.
What started as high school band Solas featured Whistler on the Celtic Flute, Roddy on keyboard, and Mairead Morrison on fiddle and vocals, among others. Fin spent some years as a roadie for them, along with Wooldridge estate manager, Kenny Maclean, while (now) Reverend Donald Murray was one-time manager. Relations between the various band members were often far from cordial, but would anyone have gone so far as to kill Roddy?
DS George Gunn asks him about Roddy, and Fin recalls their first encounter and the various issues and altercations that involved Roddy, Whistler, Mairead and other members of the group, and the liaisons that they were involved in as the group’s fame rose. The Inverness detectives want to question Whistler about the discovery of the plane, but he is being elusive. Surely he will turn up for Roddy’s (second) funeral?
But then there’s another murder, and Fin finds himself in a cell. Has it to do with Roddy’s murder? A photograph prompts a sudden recall that might be the answer to one death, if not both.
May gives the reader yet another outstanding dose of Scottish crime fiction, liberally sprinkled with gorgeous descriptive prose like: “He felt the wind fill his jacket and then his mouth, stealing his breath as the ground fell away beneath them to reveal a startling panorama of sun-washed land and water. Browns, pale blues, greens and purples faded into a shimmering distance at their feet.”
Also “The lull in the wake of the storm was over. The sunshine respite of this single day was already spent, and legions of dark clouds were assembling out on the western horizon, where the last dazzle of the dying sun spilled its gold on distant waters” and “The sky over the sands of Traigh Uige was painted on great fat brushstrokes of pale green and cream. The wind was brisk and cool and blew through the last of the coastal tormentil, shrivelling yellow petals like the first breath of winter.
And he gives Fin a wonderfully stirring speech supporting his friend during a trial by churchmen. Readers will be pleased to learn that a fourth instalment of this excellent trilogy now exists: The Black Loch will be an automatic addition to many a TBR. Unsurpassed.
June 29, 2018
Spectacular end to an unforgettable trilogy! All the characters ring true. The narration style is poetry at its best. I feel I have visited the Isle of Lewis thanks to the author’s descriptions. Very sorry to have finished it. I want to go back to Lewis again! Won’t you write a fourth one?
Thank you for such a wonderful trip, Mr May!
Thank you for such a wonderful trip, Mr May!
December 8, 2020
It’s not often that I am left with goosebumps and a shiver at the end of a book but that is exactly my experience as I read the last sentences of the third and last installment of the Lewis Trilogy, The Chessmen, by Peter May. The Chessmen is as haunting as the Hebridean landscape and Fin McLeod is as complex and authentic as any character I’ve read. He resonates with me deeply.
The Chessmen is named for the Lewis Chessmen, found on a remote beach near Uig on the Isle of Lewis. I actually didn’t know that fascinating little slice of information and love how May weaves the chess men into the tale, highlighting their uniqueness and mystery. The other piece of Hebridean history that I was intrigued by was the tragic sinking of the Iolaire, a vessel filled with soldiers returning to Stornaway, following WW1.
Peter May has woven a tale that delves into the human experience, friendships, hatreds, prejudices, hypocrisies, religious structures and deeply held traditions. Centring around a plane that is found when a loch suddenly empties, long held secrets are exposed, with ramifications that are far reached.
This was a five star read for me as was the entire trilogy. It ticked so many boxes for me and what I love to read.
The Chessmen is named for the Lewis Chessmen, found on a remote beach near Uig on the Isle of Lewis. I actually didn’t know that fascinating little slice of information and love how May weaves the chess men into the tale, highlighting their uniqueness and mystery. The other piece of Hebridean history that I was intrigued by was the tragic sinking of the Iolaire, a vessel filled with soldiers returning to Stornaway, following WW1.
Peter May has woven a tale that delves into the human experience, friendships, hatreds, prejudices, hypocrisies, religious structures and deeply held traditions. Centring around a plane that is found when a loch suddenly empties, long held secrets are exposed, with ramifications that are far reached.
This was a five star read for me as was the entire trilogy. It ticked so many boxes for me and what I love to read.
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