Given that I’ve heard they are brilliant, I have been meaning to read Peter May’s books for simply ages, but life has always intervened. As a result, I’m thrilled that Peter’s latest novel, The Black Loch is my latest My Weekly magazine online review. My enormous thanks to Sophie Ransom for originally sending me a copy of The Black Loch.
Published by Quercus imprint Riverrun on 12th September 2024, The Black Loch is available for purchase through the publisher links here.
The Black Loch
A MURDER
The body of eighteen-year-old TV personality Caitlin is found abandoned on a remote beach at the head of An Loch Dubh – the Black Loch – on the west coast of the Isle of Lewis. A swimmer and canoeist, it is inconceivable that she could have drowned.
A SECRET
Fin Macleod left the island ten years earlier to escape its memories. When he learns that his married son Fionnlagh had been having a clandestine affair with the dead girl and is suspected of her murder, he and Marsaili return to try and clear his name.
A RECKONING
But nothing is as it seems, and the truth of the murder lies in a past that Fin would rather forget, and a tragedy at the cages of a salmon farm on East Loch Roag, where the tense climax of the story finds its resolution.
The Black Loch takes us on a journey through family ties, hidden relationships and unforgiving landscapes, where suspense, violent revenge and revelation converge in the shadow of the Black Loch.
My Review of The Black Loch
My full review of The Black Loch can be found on the My Weekly website here.
However, here I can say that Black Loch is one of the best thrillers I’ve read this year. I loved the contrasting links between the present events and the past action woven into a beautifully written story with wonderful insight into the human psyche. The Black Loch feels mature, affecting and so entertaining.
Do visit My Weekly to read my full review here.
About Peter May
Peter May was born and raised in Scotland. He was an award-winning journalist at the age of twenty-one and a published novelist at twenty-six. When his first book was adapted as a major drama series for the BBC, he quit journalism and during the high-octane fifteen years that followed, became one of Scotland’s most successful television dramatists. He created three prime-time drama series, presided over two of the highest-rated serials in his homeland as script editor and producer, and worked on more than 1,000 episodes of ratings-topping drama before deciding to leave television to return to his first love, writing novels.
In 2021, Peter was awarded the CWA Dagger in the Library Award. He has also won several literature awards in France, received the USA’s Barry Award for The Blackhouse, the first in his internationally bestselling Lewis Trilogy; and in 2014 was awarded the ITV Specsavers Crime Thriller Book Club Best Read of the Year award for Entry Island. Peter now lives in South-West France with his wife, writer Janice Hally.
For more information, follow Peter on Twitter @authorpetermay, visit his website or find him on Facebook.
