The Chessmen Book # 3 in the Award-winning Lewis Trilogy from Peter May
The Chessmen – Book #3 in the Award-winning Lewis Trilogy from Peter May
The Chessmen is the third and final book in Peter May’s outstanding Lewis Trilogy. The series follows ex-Detective Inspector Fin MacLeod as he returns to his home on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides.
Through May’s vivid writing, the reader is swept into that rugged landscape and given a true sense of the people who live there.
In this final installment, Fin has left his old life behind and is temporarily living with his childhood love, Marsaili. He’s working as head of security for Red River Estates, where his first assignment brings him face-to-face with his childhood friend John Angus Macaskill — “Whistler” — a poacher who lives on the estate lands.
One night, while pursuing Whistler across the hills, they are forced to shelter in a cave. The next morning they discover that a loch has drained overnight, revealing the wreckage of a small aircraft. It turns out to be the long-missing plane of their friend Roddy MacKenzie, who vanished seventeen years earlier. Inside is a decomposed body — a man who didn’t die in a crash, but was murdered. Finding out who killed Roddy, and why, will upend the lives of Fin’s closest friends.
May tells Roddy’s story, and that of his band Amran, through flashbacks that weave into Fin’s own life. These glimpses show how their college band rose to fame, with Fin helping as a roadie and his friend Donald as manager — a tale that ended in tragedy with Roddy’s disappearance.
I love books that take me to places I’ll never visit, and May certainly does that with this trilogy.
From The Scotsman:
“Vivid descriptions of the barren landscapes and cruel weather are a poignant backdrop for a melancholy tale.”
From The Daily Record:
“Steeped in atmosphere and set in a location that permeates the story like a falling mist, The Chessmen takes the reader on an enticing reel, forwards, backwards, side to side, every step leading to a breathtaking climax.”
The Lewis Chessmen in the British Museum
The title The Chessmen refers to the Lewis Chessmen, a group of 12th-century chess pieces discovered in 1831 on the Isle of Lewis. Carved from walrus ivory, they are among the few surviving medieval chess sets.
Bottom Line:
The Chessmen, and the trilogy as a whole, are five-star reads for me. I love Fin MacLeod and his circle of friends, and I’ll miss them. May creates a “sense of place” like few writers can, and his characters feel incredibly real. I rarely reread books, but this series may be an exception — I can see myself returning to the Hebrides with Fin again and again.
The Lewis Trilogy wasn’t my first encounter with Peter May. Years ago, I read The Firemaker, the first book in his China Thriller series featuring Li Yan and Margaret Campbell. I may have to revisit that series, or perhaps dive deeper into the Enzo Files to get my next Peter May fix.
From The New York Times:
“Peter May is a writer I’d follow to the ends of the earth.”
Book 14 of 2015 – Book 9 of the Cloak & Dagger Reading Challenge
✅ Tightened your summary without losing your personal touch.
