The Lewis Man

Starred review from July 7, 2014
In May’s haunting second entry in the trilogy that began with 2012’s The Blackhouse, the last thing former Edinburgh cop Fin Macleod wants any part of is police work, but fate has other plans. Fin has returned to the remote Hebrides Isle of Lewis, where he grew up, to figure out his future. Meanwhile, locals cutting peat discover an almost perfectly mummified young man in a bog. The decades-old murder victim becomes Fin’s problem when DNA links it to Tormod Macdonald, the father of his childhood sweetheart, Marsaili, and grandfather to the quondam couple’s now-grown son, Fionnlagh. With the demented Tormod unable to illuminate matters (except, partially, through vivid interior monologues, a device some readers may find problematic), it falls to Fin to solve the overlapping mysteries of the victim’s identity, what happened to him, and Tormod’s possible role in his death—and, eventually, the deeper mystery of who Tormod himself really is. The fast-moving investigation sweeps Fin across the starkly beautiful Hebridean landscape into unexpected byways, back into the darker chapters of Scotland’s past, as well as his own—and smack into some very present danger.

August 1, 2014
The second installment in May's Lewis trilogy finds Fin Macleod (The Blackhouse, 2011) without a job or wife but with another brooding case set on the outermost island of the Outer Hebrides. Even before his slide into dementia placed him beyond the reach of any official interrogation, Tormod Macdonald had assured his daughter, Marsaili, that he was an only child. So how can it be that DNA tests on the anonymous corpse recovered from a peat bog mark the dead man as a relative of Tormod's? The police aren't interested in a 50-year-old killing, but Marsaili can't help wanting to know more about this unknown connection of her father's. And since Fin, her years-ago lover, has just quit both his marriage and the police force and camped out on Lewis Island to make his long-dead parents' cottage habitable once more, he's on hand to make inquiries. Braided into the tale of his discoveries is a series of flashbacks to the events leading up to the murder. This back-and-forth rhythm is one of the most durable and frequently irritating cliches of the genre, but May (Blowback, 2011, etc.) miraculously freshens it by recounting the past from Macdonald's point of view. Giving a voice to the demented figure at the center of the mystery accelerates the gradual pace of the revelations, gives Macdonald's unwilling, and largely unwitting, return to his early days a powerful poignancy, and allows him from time to time to leap ahead of the trained investigator working the same dark field. Despite some well-judged surprises, the mystery isn't all that mysterious. But you'll keep turning the pages anyway-not to learn whodunit, but to find out what's going to happen to the present-day characters so deeply, fatally rooted in the past.

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Starred review from September 1, 2014

The well-preserved body of a young man, found in a peat bog on Lewis Island in the Scottish Hebrides, doesn't need carbon dating when a tattoo of Elvis Presley is found on his arm. But identifying the victim, who is found to have been murdered, is complicated when DNA reveals he was related to Tormod Macdonald, a man in his 70s who is suffering rapidly from worsening dementia. Newly retired Edinburgh police detective Fin Macleod, just returned to his native Lewis, becomes caught up in the case because Macdonald's now-widowed daughter, Marsaili, was his first love. As Macdonald's first-person narrative of his difficult youth parallels the contemporary investigation, events lead to a climax fueled by revenge. VERDICT This second entry in the Lewis trilogy (after the acclaimed Barry Award-winning The Blackhouse) lives up to the high standard of the first. May weaves a shameful practice in Scottish history into a compelling story with wonderfully drawn characters motivated by deeply held emotions. The bleakly beautiful Outer Hebrides setting adds to the mood of darkness, and the characters' reactions to Macdonald's impairment--ranging from impotent rage to loving compassion--provide a needed touch of humanity. Stunning.--Michele Leber, Arlington, VA

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