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The Lewis Man

On sale

25th June 2012

Price: £16.49

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Selected: Audiobook Downloadable / ISBN-13: 9781780874135

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Marilyn Stasio in The New York Times raved: “Peter May is a writer I’d follow to the ends of the earth.” Among the many honors received, The Blackhouse, the first novel in May’s acclaimed Lewis trilogy, won the Barry and Crime Thriller Hound awards.

In The Lewis Man, the second book of the trilogy, Fin Macleod has returned to the Isle of Lewis, the storm-tossed, wind-scoured outer Hebridean island where he was born and raised. Having left behind his adult life in Edinburgh–including his wife and his career in the police force–the former Detective Inspector is intent on repairing past relationships and restoring his parents’ derelict cottage. His plans are interrupted when an unidentified corpse is recovered from a Lewis peat bog. The only clue to its identity is a DNA match to a local farmer, the now-senile Tormod Macdonald–the father of Fin’s childhood sweetheart, Marsaili–a man who has claimed throughout his life to be an only child, practically an orphan. Reluctantly drawn into the investigation, Fin uncovers deep family secrets even as he draws closer to the killer who wishes to keep them hidden.

Already an international bestseller and winner of numerous awards, including France’s Prix des Lecteurs du Telegramme, The Lewis Man has the lyrical verve of Ian Rankin and the gutsy risk-taking of Benjamin Black. As fascinating and forbidding as the Hebridean landscape, the book (according to The Times) “throbs with past and present passions, jealousies, suspicions and regrets; the emotional secrets of the bleak island are even deeper than its peat bog.”
(P)2012 Quercus Editions Ltd

Reviews

Mail on Sunday
A rip-roaring thriller . . . thoroughly enjoyable
Peter James, on Entry Island
A wonderfully complex book
Alex Gray
The Lewis Man shone like a bright star out of this year's book lists. Lyrical, empathetic and moving
Mark Billingham
He is a terrific writer doing something different
Sophie Hannah
From the first page I knew I was in safe hands. I knew I could trust this writer
Kate Mosse
Wonderfully compelling
Guardian
Western France - now May's own stamping ground - is as much a character in the book as the Hebrides were in his formidable Isle of Lewis sequence
New York Times
Peter May is a writer I'd follow to the ends of the earth
The Times
Instantly struck by the beauty of the descriptions of the wild island terrain as well as by the roundedness and complexity of the characterisations
Boyd Tonkin, on the Lewis trilogy, Independent
One of the best regarded crime series of recent years
Sunday Times
May's novels are strong on place and the wounds left by old relationships
Barry Forshaw, Independent
Will have the reader relishing every tendency of description and characterization
Scotland on Sunday
Dark, exciting and atmospheric
Glasgow Sunday Herald
Powerful and authentic
Irish Times
Fast, exciting ... an entertaining read that will also give food for thought
Tangled Web
A tense and atmospheric thriller with a heart-stopping ending
The Good Book Guide
Truly the best of May's series so far, this is not to be missed