The Blackhouse: A Novel
*Starred Review* Scottish novelist May (whose series include the Enzo Files, starring a Scottish forensic scientist working in France) starts a projected trilogy, again with a Scottish sleuth, with a shotgun blast of a debut. Two bodies are found hanging from trees: one in Edinburgh, the other on the Isle of Lewis, the most northerly isle in the Outer Hebrides. Edinburgh cop Fin Macleod, originally from Lewis, is assigned to the case for no more reason than that he speaks Gaelic. Two narratives vie with each other. One involves Macleod’s struggles with confronting people whom he left behind years ago. The other, which eventually informs the first, is Macleod’s first-person memories of his life on the island. The reader knows that Macleod, against all odds, overcame poverty and bad schooling to win a spot at the University of Glasgow and that he threw it all away in his sophomore year and became a cop, a decision he’s regretted ever since. The two narratives are brilliantly executed until they converge in an absolute stunner of an ending. The isolation and desolation of Lewis is an apt metaphor for Macleod. For once in crime fiction, a detective confronting demons from his past is not merely a stock plot device. May gives it an urgency that, by novel’s end, makes perfect sense. A gripping plot, pitch-perfect characterization, and an appropriately bleak setting drive this outstanding series debut. --Connie Fletcher