9 February 2025

Review: THE BLACK LOCH, Peter May

  • This edition published by riverrun, an Hachette UK company, 2024
  • ISBN 978-1-52943-607-5
  • 385 pages 
  • an extension to the Lewis Trilogy

Synopsis (publisher)

The newest instalment in the internationally bestselling Lewis Trilogy, The Black Loch returns to the Isle of Lewis with a twisty and unpredictable investigation that unearths dark secrets from the past.

THE RETURN OF FIN MACLEOD, PETER MAY'S MUCH-LOVED HERO OF THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLING LEWIS TRILOGY.

A MURDER

The body of eighteen-year-old TV personality Caitlin is found abandoned on a remote beach at the head of An Loch Dubh - the Black Loch - on the west coast of the Isle of Lewis. A swimmer and canoeist, it is inconceivable that she could have drowned.

A SECRET

Fin Macleod left the island ten years earlier to escape its memories. When he learns that his married son Fionnlagh had been having a clandestine affair with the dead girl and is suspected of her murder, he and Marsaili return to try and clear his name.

A RECKONING

But nothing is as it seems, and the truth of the murder lies in a past that Fin would rather forget, and a tragedy at the cages of a salmon farm on East Loch Roag, where the tense climax of the story finds its resolution.

The Black Loch takes us on a journey through family ties, hidden relationships and unforgiving landscapes, where suspense, violent revenge and revelation converge in the shadow of the Black Loch.

My Take

It is over 10 years since I read the first two books in the Lewis Trilogy so my recall of the series (and I never read #3) was not very reliable. 

The author does a good job of summarising Fin Macleod's very chequered life for us, and we learn a lot about his childhood and adolescent years. Fin is now no longer a detective, and is working in a police-related job that he hates. Events that scarred his adolescence rise to the surface.

My rating: 4.5

I've also read

  • THE RUNNER
  • VIRTUALLY DEAD
  • FREEZE FRAME
  • 4.7, THE BLACKHOUSE - #1
  • 5.0, THE LEWIS MAN - #2
  • 4.5, EXTRAORDINARY PEOPLE
  • 5.0, ENTRY ISLAND
  • 4.9, COFFIN ROAD
  • 4.8, LOCKDOWN
  • 4.6, ENTRY ISLAND 
  • 4.6, A WINTER GRAVE
  •  

    Lewis Trilogy (Fantastic Fiction)
       1. The Blackhouse (2011)
       2. The Lewis Man (2011)
       3. The Chessmen (2012)
       4. The Black Loch (2024)

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