Following a trip to the Isle of Lewis and visiting the various blackhouses up there I picked up a copy of The Blackhouse on route back home. Two years later I finally got round to reading it.
The Blackhouse – the blurb
A brutal killing takes place on the Isle of Lewis, Scotland: a land of harsh beauty and inhabitants of deep-rooted faith.
A MURDER Detective Inspector Fin Macleod is sent from Edinburgh to investigate. For Lewis-born Macleod, the case represents a journey both home and into his past.
A SECRET Something lurks within the close-knit island community. Something sinister.
A TRAP As Fin investigates, old skeletons begin to surface, and soon he, the hunter, becomes the hunted.
Bringing murder to the Hebrides
The Blackhouse is actually the first in a trilogy of books called the Lewis Trilogy and May is dubbed the ‘man who brought murder to the Hebrides’. I had read The Coffin Road by May whilst actually on holiday in the Hebrides and this was a remnant from said holiday. I loved reading about all the places I had visited (Lews Castle, Port of Ness) which gave more meaning to the story and recalled happy memories from the holiday.
A very Hebridean book
The book is without doubt deeply rooted in the Hebrides, something that shows in the writing. There are smatterings of Sheilings, Bothans and even a pronunciation section at the start of the book. This coupled with the fact it recounts a trip to hunt the guga bird, a trip held in high regard by Lewis men illustrates how much of a Hebridean book it is. I really liked this sense of identity. It makes Blackhouse stand out in a sea of noir books.
May was unflinching in his location but he was also unflinching in his detail. The autopsy, some nine pages long, was not one to read during lunch and if I’m honest didn’t seem entirely necessary. I still don’t know what a left parietal bone is and didn’t find it central to the story. Nor do I know anything about firmware upgrades on Mac computers yet the tendency to linger on the unnecessary didn’t stop me from enjoying the book.
A bit of good, a bit of bad
May created and then developed some really interesting characters. Nobody was totally good or totally bad. It would have been very easy to hate Fin’s wife or Artair. Yet May steered clear of this, even managing to paint the victim Angel in a good light on occasion.
I didn’t guess the twist nor the ending and it held me right to the end. There was something brutal in the writing, perhaps mirroring the landscape – the descriptions about the killing of the gugas for instance compared to the harshness of the rock they nested on. I loved the location and May sets it up perfectly for book number 2 complete with trusty sidekick and tyrannical boss. The next in the series is The Lewis Man and I will be reading it.
