The Blackhouse by Peter May

Summary

When a brutal murder on the remote Isle of Lewis bears the same modus operandi as a recent Edinburgh killing, Detective Fin MacLeod is sent to investigate.  Sergeant Gunn knows the islanders, and keen for MacLeod to uncover the murderer embarks on a mission to both help him, and protect him.  Artair learns of Fin’s return, but all Fin sees is what the island has done to his childhood friend as his mistakes in Edinburgh catch up with him.

Gigs MacAuley prepares his men for the guga cull, an annual ritual that sees two thousand gannet adolescents killed to produce the island’s delicacy. Home to the gannet colony, the rock they journey to is a brutal creation of nature that threatens to destroy all that visit it. As Fin investigates, he scrambles to piece together the events that led to the brutality on the island. Events that unravel show him his past, his investigation and his future are all intertwined; it’s a race to save his future from becoming another of the rock’s victims.