Book 8 - The Lewis Man

The Lewis Man by Peter May - first published in 2012

This is the 2^nd book of the Lewis Trilogy, which began with The Blackhouse.  Fin Macleod returns to his native island of Lewis after his marriage breaks up and he resigns from the police force in Edinburgh.  He plans to rebuild his late parents’ ruined house and then to live in it.  Then a well-preserved corpse is discovered in a Lewis peat bog when some islanders are cutting peat to dry and use as fuel.  The body is a DNA sibling match to a retired local farmer Tormod Macdonald.  However Tormod is very elderly and suffering from senile dementia and he had always told his family that he was an only child.  Tormod’s daughter Marsaili is Fin’s ex-girlfriend and she enlists him to help solve the mystery.  Fin’s investigation takes him first down to the Isle of Harris and then further south to the Uists and Eriskay. 

Although this book is complete in itself I think that if I hadn’t read the first book in the trilogy I would have found some aspects of the story confusing.  The pace of the story is slower than the Blackhouse, although it does have a dramatic ending.  I enjoyed it even more than the Blackhouse, partly because all the locations mentioned in the book, apart from Fin’s home village of Crobost, are real and it brought back memories of a happy holiday in the Outer Hebrides.  I look forward to reading the 3^rd book in the trilogy – The Chessmen, which has just been published.  8/10

Islands covered - Lewis, Harris, South Uist and Eriskay 

An Taobh Tuath (Northton), Harris

This is one of the places that Fin visits while trying to find out who Tormod really is.  The Seallam Visitor Centre, which Fin visits is nearby.

Prince's Beach, west coast of Eriskay 

Bonnie Prince Charlie is supposed to have first set foot in Scotland when he landed on this beach in 1745.  There is a memorial cairn at the back of the beach on the west coast built to commemorate this event.  The beach plays an important role in The Lewis Man.


Prince's Beach, Eriskay

Peat cut, dried and stacked