The author has captured the mood of those tormented islands off Scotland while building an original detective story which we will not reveal here the outcome. Having lived a few months there nearly 25 years on the island of Lewis, I can say that the picture brush the author of the Outer Hebrides (Lewis Isles, Harris, Uist, Eriksay, Barra) is striking. The omnipresent peat, machair, sort of grassy between land and ocean, the devastation caused by a rigorous Protestantism on local culture, everything is there! The novel does not lack condemn the practices of the Catholic Church at the time who put in force in children with host families lost on these islands. Finally, for those of you who are facing Alzheimer's disease, the way Peter May features the main protagonist of this novel, Tormod Macdonald, dementia is remarkable. It so happens to make us live from within that may feel a man with dementia. A strong book with characters so ravaged by an existence that did not make their gifts, it is the least we can say.
