The Blackhouse by Peter May
Narrated by: Peter Forbes
Publication Dates: Book 2011, audiobook 2018
Summary from Goodreads:
The Isle of Lewis is the most remote, harshly beautiful place in Scotland, where the difficulty of existence seems outweighed only by people’s fear of God. But older, pagan values lurk beneath the veneer of faith, the primal yearning for blood and revenge.
When a brutal murder on the island bears the hallmarks of a similar slaying in Edinburgh, police detective Fin Macleod is dispatched north to investigate. But since he himself was raised on Lewis, the investigation also represents a journey home and into his past.
Each year the island’s men perform the hunting of the gugas, a savage custom no longer necessary for survival, but which they cling to even more fiercely in the face of the demands of modern morality. For Fin the hunt recalls a horrific tragedy, which after all this time may have begun to demand another sacrifice.
The Blackhouse is a crime novel of rare power and vision. Peter May has crafted a page-turning murder mystery that explores the darkness in our souls, and just how difficult it is to escape the past.
Confession:
This is such a well crafted story that moves so smoothly between past and present events and leaves you totally immersed into this islands life and inhabitants that you feel like you are part of the story itself. Some of this feeling was enhanced by the narrator, Peter Forbes’s voice. I loved his voice and how smoothly he told this harrowing story of crimes past and present.
Fin Macleod has just had his life torn apart when the story starts and he is only just now beginning to maybe put it back together when he is sent home to the island where he grew up and couldn’t wait to leave. There are many things I liked about Fin, but there were just as many that I didn’t like. He is a good detective, one who needs to follow through on the cases he is handed even when the higher ups tell him to stop. But he is also a man who is haunted by his own demons, many of his own making. But he is slowly coming to terms with those demons by the end of the book, and hopefully he will be able to make amends for them.
The setting is what really makes this story shine. Isle of Lewis sounds like such a lonely and desolate place full of very religious and stoic people. Many of them are doing what they need to do to survive. Many of the characters that Fin encounters on the island are tough and know how to keep the island’s secrets for better or worse. May does a wonderful job of making you feel apart of each individual’s life and you hope that things turn out better for them.
There is a murder mystery in this story as well, but it does occasionally take a back seat to Fin’s memories and recollections of his childhood. There were a couple of times that I did just want the story to get back to the solving of the murder, but by the end of the book I understood why we needed so much of the story of Fin’s life first to understand the murderer’s motives. There is a twist at the end that was totally out of nowhere, but also totally fit within what he knew of Fin and his childhood.
If you like dark and twisty stories set in a desolate place with some quirky characters this is a story you might want to consider picking up. It is the first in a trilogy and I am hoping to pick up the second book sometime soon. I can’t wait to get back to the Isle of Lewis and to Fin and his life.
Confessions of a Serial Reader 
This trilogy was the first thing that I had read by Peter May but I really loved it. I’m glad you enjoyed this one so much.
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I really did enjoy it. I am looking forward to starting the next one soon.
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