The Chessmen (Lewis Trilogy 3)

Author/Guide: Peter May

Why a Booktrail?

2000s: ‘Look back with regret, look forward with fear’

ISBN: 978-0857382252
Genre: Crime, Mystery

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What you need to know before your trail

The concluding part of the Lewis Trilogy. Fin Macleod, now head of security on a privately owned Lewis estate, is charged with investigating a spate of illegal game-hunting taking place on the island. In order to investigate he comes across Whistler Macaskill – a local poacher and someone from Fin’s past – someone who knows a secret…

This man from the past may not bring the good news that Finn is looking for and in fact might be the biggest danger that Finn is facing. for when the past and the present collide, the future could be but all destroyed.

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Travel Guide

Fin McLeod was born and bred on the island of Lewis and having returned for good in book 2, he is now firmly entrenched in the landscape and the communities on the island. Even if he has left the island, the island has never left him. It may have changed and altered somewhat but Fin is keen to return in every way possible.

An islander, once an outsider and now an islander again. He is tasked with investigating poaching which is happening on a large estate. A bleak task in a bleak landscape. Having to investigate one of your own is difficult in a community where a sense of belonging both to the island, the church, the traditions and histories of the past is woven into a tale of mystery and despair.

A ghost from the past returns and it’s up to Finn to try and separate past and present but on a weather beaten island where ghosts are free to roam and do as they please, this is no easy task.

The Chessmen refers to the medieval chess sets which were discovered on the island in 1831. They are now to be found in the British Museum in London. They would have been cast ashore following a shipwreck. Nearby in Holm, Stornoway, there is a memorial – the Iolaire memorial in memory of Britain’s worst peacetime maritime disaster after the sinking of the Titanic, a true life tale which is also woven into Peter May’s evocative and historically interesting novel.