The Black Loch by Peter May is a reasonably simple read but it’s a really good murder mystery / suspense set in the Scottish islands. The body of an eighteen-year-old TV personality, Caitlin, is found on a beach and so the story begins. The prime suspect is Fionnlagh Macleod; his father is Fin Macleod, a retired police detective who used to work on the island. He returns to investigate and hopefully to protect his son who was having a secret affair with Caitlin.

What elevates this book above the ordinary crime story is the authenticity. The characters feel suitably real, their dialogue rings true, and the Hebridean landscape becomes almost a character itself, dull and tough, affecting both the characters’ and the plot’s mood. The Scottish Island setting does what it does best: creating a character-driven narrative where isolation, a tightly knit, long-time community drive behaviour.

I really liked that the author knitted childhood memories, school-day relationships, and long-buried mistakes into a plot that feels simple, made sophisticated with quality writing. This is contemporary bestseller fiction at its finest, accessible without being too simplistic, suspenseful without relying on cheap factory-fiction tricks. The story’s exploration of family ties and hidden relationships unfolds with intriguing precision, building toward a tense climax at the salmon farm cages of East Loch Roag. Really, this book deserves to be a movie.

The writing quality is consistently high-quality, demonstrating Peter May’s command of pacing and atmosphere and, I suspect, his experience, this being his 30-something-th book. His ability to evoke place is particularly striking, the Black Loch seems to be a broad metaphor for the many dark secrets lurking beneath the characters’ seemingly calm surfaces.

This is the kind of book I ration toward the end, reluctant for it to end and so to leave its world behind. For readers who appreciate atmospheric crime fiction where setting and character matter as much as plot, The Black Loch delivers a thoroughly satisfying experience.