Jon Morgan is a retired police Superintendent and francophile who, it is said, has consequently seen almost everything awful that people can do to each other. He relishes quality writing in all genres but advises particularly on police procedure for authors including John Harvey and Jon McGregor. Haunts bookshops both new and secondhand and stands with Erasmus: “When I have a little money, I buy books; and if I have any left, I may buy food and clothes.”
Caitlin Lewis was 18. Was. Now she is dead. Assaulted, drowned and possibly raped. Her much older lover hands himself in and after some pretty shoddy assumption based police work by a ‘high flying’ detective he is charged. The post mortem has not even taken place as there is no authorised pathologist on the Hebrides. God forbid it should take place on the Sabbath!
Fin Macleod is a former police detective and now a civilian dark-web child abuse watcher. His married son, a teacher of the dead girl, is the prime, indeed the only, suspect. Fin returns to the Isle of Lewis, where he grew up, to try and piece together what exactly happened. As he does so, long-buried secrets from both his past and that of those he grew up with, begin to surface.
The past has a long reach on this Calvinist dominated island where religion, and hidden hypocrisy rather than morality, holds sway, where big business – in this case salmon farming goes head to head with eco-activism, and where youthful and not-so-youthful indiscretions affect the present in some very unexpected and sometimes very violent ways. The sins of the fathers really do appear to be being visited on their children.
Fin puts his complicated relationship with his wife and extended family, and ultimately his own life at risk in attempting to uncover the truth and perhaps exonerate his son – or at least understand what he has done and why. He has friends on the island. Not all can help him, Not all want to, although some do at no little peril to themselves. Other ‘friends’ and indeed past acquaintances, are nothing of the sort.
In pursuit of truth and justice for his son and the murdered girl Fin is forced to confront his past life, his own indiscretions and secrets, long concealed, crawl out of the woodwork to affect many of the characters.
Not having read any of Peter May’s other books is a slight disadvantage as there are multiple allusions to past activities and reasons for leaving the island – and the police. Not all of these are resolved and it gives me a good reason to add this author to my already massive TBR pile.
The writing is first rate, characters are formed and their backstories (mostly) developed. The tension builds, a mounting sense of frustration is almost palpable in the main characters as well as in some of the minor ones. The island itself, in its changing weather and history, with the seas around it, becomes a character in itself. Death is no stranger here and previous crimes on the island and elsewhere and the unexplained, tragic and suspicious demise of both humans and animals, whales, salmon etc, is a recurrent leitmotif.
Pace is variable in this novel, deliberately so. Unfolding revelations can slow down or vastly speed up the narrative and the ultimate resolution seems a long time coming – this, again, is not a fault and it takes a writer of talent to sustain the action through the peaks and troughs of discovery and dead-ends in the development of the story.
This is a high-quality piece of work. You will not be disappointed, either as a previous reader of Peter May’s output or, like me, a neophyte. The ‘Lewis Trilogy’ is a trilogy no more - The Black Loch is a pleasure to read and really will leave you wanting even more.
Read about the research Peter undertook when writing the book here
