The Blackhouse

'For the things we hope in the secrets of our hearts. If they were realized, would they really be the answer we'd prayed for?'


The Blackhouse by Peter  May


Detective Inspector Fin MacLeod of the Edinburgh police is at a low point in his life. He is suffering from depression for multiple reasons when his bosses called him in and tell him it's time to shape up or ship out in a manner of speaking. The case they give him will sent him back to the Isle of Lewis which is part of the archipelago of the Outer Hebrides.



Fin left Lewis eighteen years ago returning once only for the funeral of the aunt he lived with for several years. He had never looked back since. MacLeod had felt a great sense of freedom and lightening of the spirit once he came to the city. Many of his friends had also wanted to leave but circumstances has kept them home. One can never predict how ones childhood friends will turn out when they grow up.

Fin tries to reconnect with his past but he finds this difficult since his friends have altered mostly for the worse. Artair his closest childhood friend is a very bitter drunk, Donald once a free spirit is now a forbidding minister and his old girl fried, married with a child is almost unrecognizable.

Now perhaps one of them was the perpetrator of the brutal murder of a bully from childhood to the present. Was Fin wearing blinders then and is he wearing them still? One thing is sure and that is he has to accept what kind of a person he was then and sonsider if he has changed for the better or the worse.

Peter May takes Fin back in his memories through a first person POV and the reader sees that there was a lot of sadness in Fin's life. Fin appears to be an inconsistent character at times but as his journey into his past is revealed  he makes more and more sense. The community in which he grew up helped hide his skeletons and permitted him to survive.

The murder may seem to be a side issue at times but solving it sheds light on all the mysteries in Fin's life. This was a great read.

Death at the Chateau Bremont

In the lovely area just north of Marseilles is Aix-en-Provence lived two brothers descended from a noble family. One was all the good and the other was all the bad in the family. Étienne was the first to die and he met his end by falling out of an attic window of the Bremont estate that was as familiar to him as his childhood. François, his brother was found murdered in a fountain days later.

Charismatic Antoine Verlaque is the Chief Investigating magistrate of Aix and he begins to unravel the lives of these siblings. He calls on an old friend of his, a law professor, Marine Bonnet who knew these boys when they were growing up. As is often the case there was still much to be discovered about the lives of these men, their recent pasts and the reality of who was the good, or bad even ugly.

It seems these days that the influences of the Russian mafia in the Côte d'Azur and the Corsican Mafia in Marseilles have the crime of these areas sewn up and it seems both brothers had fingers getting burnt in dangerous pies.

There is an excellent sense of place and times in this book. The characters are very well drawn and likable although none are presented without flaws. They seemed all the more real because of them. The policing and judicial system in France is complex and Verlaque's job is an example of that. He began as a prosecutor and moved to head district judge in a brief time. He is considered incorruptible and at 41 years old is comparatively young for his position. Examining magistrates are entitled to take a hands-on role in investigations although most don't.

Aix is a gem of a town and the descriptions of it's celebrated main street with its canopy of  branches makes one want to visit and sit at a café along the boulevard. The spires of Sainte-Jean-de-Malte tree are a calming influence on the denizens of the city as well.