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carolhoggart 's review for:
The Blackhouse
by Peter May
A murder on the Isle of Lewis bearing the same hallmarks of one recently committed in Edinburgh forces DI Fin McCleod back to the place he grew up for the first time in his adult life. The novel then progresses by means of alternating between the present murder investigation (narrated in the 3rd person) and the past (in 1st person), explicating Fin's early Hebridean experiences. I found the switch from 3rd to 1st person (both, strangely, in Fin's point of view) rather disorientating at first.
The mood is unrelievedly dark. All young people growing up on Lewis seem desperate to leave as soon as possible. The damp, the wind, storms, stray sheep causing car accidents, obesity, alcoholism, abuse, bullying, joyless church adherence, poverty, yearly massacre of seabird chicks ... there really isn't a lot of sweetness and joy to be had on May's version of Lewis.
But the story was interesting, and I may have given The Blackhouse a grudging 4 stars - had it not been for the ending. True, the last quarter of the book had me up til past 1am, desperate to find out what would happen, BUT I felt let down by the final plot revelation. I felt as if May had broken the crime-writer's unwritten pledge of seeding adequate clues along the way and making the final reveal convincing. Maybe there are documented psychological amnesia cases such as Fin McLeod's out there in the real world. That said, I'm afraid in the context of a crime novel, such a twist needs more thorough foregrounding (e.g. via earlier hints) for it to convince this reader.
The mood is unrelievedly dark. All young people growing up on Lewis seem desperate to leave as soon as possible. The damp, the wind, storms, stray sheep causing car accidents, obesity, alcoholism, abuse, bullying, joyless church adherence, poverty, yearly massacre of seabird chicks ... there really isn't a lot of sweetness and joy to be had on May's version of Lewis.
But the story was interesting, and I may have given The Blackhouse a grudging 4 stars - had it not been for the ending. True, the last quarter of the book had me up til past 1am, desperate to find out what would happen, BUT I felt let down by the final plot revelation. I felt as if May had broken the crime-writer's unwritten pledge of seeding adequate clues along the way and making the final reveal convincing. Maybe there are documented psychological amnesia cases such as Fin McLeod's out there in the real world. That said, I'm afraid in the context of a crime novel, such a twist needs more thorough foregrounding (e.g. via earlier hints) for it to convince this reader.