The Black Loch (Book Review)

 

The Black Loch (The Lewis Trilogy, Book 4)
by Peter May

Audio book narrated by Peter Forbes (11 hrs and 29 mins). The audiobook also includes an audio-exclusive conversation between Peter May (author) and Peter Forbes (narrator).

This book re-introduces detective Fin Macleod from May's Lewis trilogy (The Blackhouse, The Lewis Man and The Chess Men, 2009-2013).

When the body of an 18 year old young woman is found on a remote beach on the west coast of the Isle of Lewis, it seems unlikely that she died by accident. When it turns out that she was having an affair with Fin's son, Fionnlagh Macleod (a teacher at the institute where she was a student), Fionnlagh becomes the prime suspect in her murder. This brings Fin and Marsaili back to the island to try and find out more about the situation, and hopefully clear their son's name. Of course things take an unexpected turn or two along the way; and the case also turns out to have connections back to Fin's own teenage years...

As usual, Peter Forbes' narration of the audio book is excellent; and the conversation between him and Peter May included at the end was very enjoyable as well. I gathered from their talk that Forbes has now recorded all of May's books.

I first read the Lewis trilogy back in 2012-13, and since then I think I've also read/listened to (and enjoyed) most of the author's standalones published after that - most of them as audio books. (I have not caught up with his earlier books though.) 

If you haven't yet read the Lewis Trilogy, I recommend that you do that before you read this one.

The Chess Men (Book Review)

The Chess Men is the third novel in “the Lewis Trilogy” by Peter May (following The Blackhouse and The Lewis Man – links go to my reviews).

For me this one was a page-turner from beginning to end. It starts with a disappearing loch (lake). Who can resist getting intrigued? I read the book in three days.

Former police detective Fin Macleod’s has taken a job as head of security on a private estate. In this capacity he is reunited with another close friend from the past, a reunion which continues to stir up memories and cast more light on his teen years, as well as questions about what determines our choices in life.

I really liked the whole trilogy, and the third book did not disappoint me. I wonder how determined the author is about keeping it a trilogy… While this book did tie up some loose ends, it doesn’t seem to close the door completely for a continuation. I can see a risk, though, that if it were to continue for too long, it would probably eventually grow repetitious and too unrealistic. But in this book, I think Peter May still manages very successfully to keep up the magic contained in the very landscape, climate and history of the island, as well as in the background of his main character. I’m still enchanted by May’s use of language and also the general reflections triggered by confrontations between the present and the past. My spontaneous rating (Kindle always asks) is 5 stars.

*****

The Lewis chessmen in the title refer to medeival chess pieces found in 1831 on the Isle of Lewis, which may constitute some of the few complete, surviving medieval chess sets. They were probably made in Norway and are carved from walrus ivory and wales’ teeth. One characteristic feature is their rather expressive faces.

(photo from Wikimedia Commons, replicas)

The British Museum in London has 67 of the original pieces, and the Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh has the remaining 11.

I learned the basics of chess back in childhood but I have to confess it’s been so many years since I last played that I had to check now in which order to set up the pieces. Which I did for this photo:

The funny coincidence is, I actually have a chess set based on the Lewis chessmen. Made many years ago by my brother who bought a set of molds for casting them in plaster. I remembered I had it while he was here for Christmas and asked him about it and he said that yes, they are based on the Lewis chessmen.

Pawn, Queen and King

Rook (Berserker*), Knight, Bishop

*Quote from the book:

“The Berserkers were Norse warriors who whipped themselves up into a trance-like state, so that they could fight without fear or pain. The fiercest of the Viking warriors.”

*****

Some of my “highlights”, not containing spoilers but just examples of how the author uses language…

The distinctevely toasty scent of warm peat smoke filled the house. Stepping into it was like falling down the rabbit hole.

‘Because they knew they wouldn’t get a conviction in a court of law, Mr Macleod.’ He scratched his head. ‘But a court of the Free Church of Scotland… that’s another matter altogether.’

The storm had passed by the Monday, but it was still overcast, dull light suffused with a grey-green, as if we were all somehow trapped inside a Tupperware box.

‘Tell me.’ ‘Another time.’ ‘Who says there’ll be another time?’

Silence settled like down after a duck fight.

Book Review: The Lewis Man by Peter May

The Lewis Man by Peter May is the second book in a trilogy set on the Isle of Lewis off the west coast of Scotland. I went pretty much straight on to this one after the first one in the series, The Blackhouse (which I blogged about two weeks ago).

Amazon's introduction:

A MAN WITH NO NAME
An unidentified corpse is recovered from a Lewis peat bog; the only clue to its identity being a DNA sibling match to a local farmer.
A MAN WITH NO MEMORY
But this islander, Tormod Macdonald - now an elderly man suffering from dementia - has always claimed to be an only child.
A MAN WITH NO CHOICE
When Tormod's family approach Fin Macleod for help, Fin feels duty-bound to solve the mystery.

My comments:

Some six or eight months have passed between the previous book and this one. Fin Macleod has resigned from his police detective job in Edinburgh and is back on Lewis for private reasons. While in the first novel his personal experiences and memories from growing up on Lewis came to play a part in unravelling the crime he was then sent there to investigate officially; in this book it is (sort of) the other way round. When he gets involved in a case involving an old unidentified corpse just found in a peat bog, this is because of his private connections on the island, and not as an official police detective. But still experiences from his previous job gets integrated with his inofficial quest.

Like in the first book, the landscape and climate is still very much interwoven with the events and the characters. All the time in the background, you feel the weather. I don’t think I've ever come across an author with quite the same skill to make the descriptions of nature inseparable from the story itself.

The wind howled its disapproval all around them.

The sun had rediscovered its warmth, and fought to take the edge off the wind.

Heavy low cloud scraped and grazed itself against the rise and fall of the land, pregnant with rain, but holding it still as in realisation that the ground below was already beyond saturation.

In this novel too, we get the story served in parts, and from different narrative and time perspectives. In this book, we are also faced with the added complication of old age dementia. I kept thinking of my own father (who suffered from this in the last years of his life), which at times made it a somewhat 'uncomfortable' read  (stirring up my own emotions and memories). But at the same time, I have to say I'm really impressed with Peter May's respectful attempts to describe and unscramble the old age ”clouds of the mind”, involving all sorts of odd mix-ups of people and places and times.

'We walk into that nursing home, and all we see are a lot of old people sitting around. Vacant eyes, sad smiles. And we just dismiss them as … well, old. Spent, hardly worth bothering about. And yet behind those eyes every one of them has had a life, a story they could tell you. Of pain, love, hope, despair. All the things we feel, too. Getting old doesn't make them any less valid, or any less real. And it'll be us one day. Sitting there watching the young ones dismiss us as … well, old. And what's that going to feel like?'

Just as with the first book, with this one too I found it harder and harder to put it down as the story began to draw to a close... Parts of the ‘main plot’ are perhaps not quite as believable as the general setting – but I'll give it at least four stars (out of five). **** I find Peter May a really talented writer who must also be putting a lot of effort into his background research.

Some more quotes I highlighted during the reading:

When you are young a year is a big part of your life and seems to last for ever. When you are old, there have been too many of them gone before and they pass all too fast. We move so slowly away from birth, and rush so quickly to death.

He wore dark-grey suits that concertinaed around thick black shoes which squeaked on the tiles so that you always knew when he was coming, like the tick-tock of the crocodile in Peter Pan.

Whatever is à la mode today somehow seems ridiculous in retrospect.

No carved stonework or religious friezes, no stained-glass windows, no bell in the bell-tower. This was God without distraction.

You only have to look around you, and life will always remind you that you are not like others.

And he realized that you can never tell, even when you think you know someone well, what they might have been through in their lives.

Book Review: The Blackhouse

The Blackhouse by Peter May is the first book in a trilogy set on the Isle of Lewis off the west coast of Scotland.

[I first heard of the series from fellow blogger Adrian of Adrian’s Images, who has been praising them on more than one occasion. But what made me really interested to read them was that Lewis has come to feel familiar to me over the past few years through the blogs of GB (Eagleton Notes and A Hebredian in New Zealand) who actually lives there (well, six months of the year anyway!) – and his likewise blogging brother Scriptor, who occasionally leaves his Chair to go up there for a visit.]

The Blackhouse had me hooked right from the start because of the the author’s way with language and his vivid descriptions of the landscape and shifting weather and other details of island life that were already familiar to me from my friends’ photos. The characters in the story also somehow rang true to me; very much formed by the conditions of life in that environment, and traditions that go back generations, now clashing with the rapidly increasing influence of modern society and modern means of transport and communication.

The main character, a police detective, comes back to the island after many years away on the mainland. Besides the murder he has been sent there to look into, he is confronted with his own memories from growing up on Lewis. The story goes back and forth between the present day mystery to be solved, and things that happened in the past.

I don’t think I’ll say much more about the plot that that; only that there are quite a few twists and turns along the way, and that it got harder and harder to put the book away…

For me I think it’s likely to be a book I’ll remember (even if that is something really only time can tell!) No doubt I’ll forget details of the plot; but I think images created in my head during the reading will remain with me, as will certain feelings, and increased knowledge and understanding of traditions and ways of life in that part of the world.

As I said above, this is the first book in a trilogy; and it might also say something about my appreciation that after finishing The Blackhouse, I went straight ahead and bought* the next two as well: The Lewis Man, and The Chessmen. (Actually I’ve got started on The Lewis Man.)

Not quite incidentally, I saw today that GB also just finished reading The Blackhouse - you can read his thoughts on it here. (I was glad to learn that even he, living there himself, found the descriptions of the island and its inhabitants to ring true.)

Here are a few quotes that I highlighted during my reading - just to give you a taste of the language and style:

The exams I would sit at the end of that year would pretty much determine my future. And the rest of your life is a lot of responsibility to carry when you’re thirteen.

It’s odd how people can get locked into a kind of timewarp. There’s a time in their lives that defines them, and they hang on to it for all the subsequent decades; the same hair, the same music, even though the world around them has changed beyond recognition.

He felt like a ghost haunting his own past, walking the streets of his childhood. He half expected to see himself and Artair coming around the bend in the road.

Fin stepped out into the blustery afternoon as the rain began falling in earnest. Horizontally.

There are moments when you look at the sky and you feel that everything revolves around you, and other times when you just feel infinitesimally small.

It’s a good place to get away from. But it’s good to come back to.

 

. . .

* PS about Kindle

I’m reading these books on my Kindle. From the discussion on GB’s post today I learn that we are not all equal in the Kindle world... While the second book in the series costs only 20p for Kindle-owners in the UK, I had to pay $11,68!

Not only did I have to buy my Kindle from the US, even though I live Europe. It seems I have to download the Kindle e-books from the US as well; I cannot buy those from amazon.uk. Hardcover books and paperbacks and other things that need physical wrapping and shipping, those I can buy from England. But electronic books – nooo…! Can anyone make sense of that??