i have had this book on my radar for a couple of years and finally read it in anticipation of our upcoming trip to Scotland. The book stared slowly but it picked up steam to the point where I could not put it down. An Edinburgh police detective, Finn Macleod, is on leave because his 8 year old son has been killed in a hit and run. He’s recalled to work to investigate a murder on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, where he is from. A man has been murdered there, in a similar fashion to a crime committed a few months ago in Edinburgh for which Finn is the main investigator. Because Finn was born and grew up on the island, and because he speaks Gaelic, he is assigned to the investigation.  The novel splits into alternating parts: the present day (told in the third person), in which Finn and local detective George Gunn assist the crime investigation (even tho the chief investigator tries to dismiss him) and the past, told in the first person, in which Finn relives his life growing up on the island.  The two parts converge as the police get closer to solving the crime and Finn’s past life that he has tried so hard to forget converges with the current investigation. Some of the descriptions of Finn’s childhood move slowly but the novel picks up steam about halfway through and I had to keep reading until i finished.