Raging Storms, Raging Hormones in a Very Dark Tale

Once again the library discussion group where I'm filling in for the leader this spring turned up a very interesting book.  I would never have picked this up, since I don't read mysteries very much, but I've very glad I was introduced to Peter May and his characters on the Isle of Lewis, one of the Outer Hebrides off the coast of Scotland.

We are plunged into the mystery with a gory scene of two teenage lovers seeking a quiet place who discover a disemboweled corpse swinging from the rafters of an abandoned boat house.  Within one short chapter, May gives us a taste of the main themes of the book: hormones and fundamentalist religion, wild weather and wild men, fathers and sons. Then the story itself opens as Fin Macleod, a detective based in Edinburgh, is called to investigate the murder on the island where he was born and from which he could not wait to escape when he turned 18. 

Alternating between Fin's first person memories of his childhood and adolesence and a third person recounting of the investigation, May does a masterful job of maintaining suspense, giving us an intimate look into life on the Isle of Lewis which is like many other places on the edges of 21st century society (I was reminded of Appalachia), and conveying the anguish of a man who has lost a son.

The weather and the sea play an enormous role in the story, and here May's writing is compelling.   Ultimately, though, it becomes almost tedious, since May, like many other mystery writers, succumbs to the temptation to fill pages with detail that are only somewhat related to the yarn they're telling.  (And here I'm thinking of Louise Penny, whose delightful Armand Gamache stories contain too much about the good food eaten in Three Pines!)