Tributes to Scottish-French crime author Peter May who lived - and died - in the Lot

Tributes are being paid to Scottish-French crime author, screenwriter and musician Peter May, who died aged 74 at his home in the south of France on Friday (September 25). 

The Glasgow-born author of 31 books has sold some 15 million copies around the world, with his publisher and friend, Jon Riley, describing him as “one of the most popular, and loved writers of crime fiction of his generation.”

“Peter May inspired enormous affection in his readers and in those lucky enough to work with him. His kindness, generosity and largeness of spirit, loyalty, engagement with life and the world, made him a much-loved, as well as much-admired figure. He is irreplaceable,” said Mr Riley.

Sympathies also came from French publishing house Éditions du Rouergue: “Peter May was a man of raw sensitivity, deeply empathetic, considerate and infinitely kind.”

Éditions du Rouergue first published Mr May’s breakthrough Lewis-set thriller The Blackhouse (French: L'Île des chasseurs d'oiseaux) in 2009 after being turned down by UK publishers.

Mr May reflected on this experience in an interview with The Connexion in 2019. 

“One day I was at the Book Fair in Brive, and I had a chance conversation with my editor about this manuscript I had sitting in a drawer. She asked me to send it – and about six weeks later, she phoned me and said: ‘I love this book, and I want to buy the world rights to it.’ She did and it got translated into French and was published here before anywhere else and it just took off,” said Mr May.

He went on to win awards including the Cezam Prix Littéraire, one of the world’s largest adjudicated readers’ awards, the Prix International at the Polar&Co festival in Cognac and the newspaper Le Télégramme’s Prix des Lecteurs. 

Living and writing in France

Mr May first worked in Scotland as a journalist and then television writer and producer for dramas such as Machair, the first major series in Gaelic with English subtitles, which he created with his wife Janice Hally in the Outer Hebrides. 

The couple moved to the Lot in 2002 and turned to writing books full time. 

“When I first started coming here on holiday on a regular basis in my early 20s, I thought, ‘this is where I would like to live.’ It’s a different way of life, a different pace of life, particularly in rural France,” Mr May told The Connexion. 

“Writers are far more respected in France. There is almost a reverence for writers and artists and musicians. The major difference is that it is much harder to make a living as a writer in France,” he added. 

Mr May also spoke about the differences between French and British reading habits and literary attitudes.

“There are definitely people in the UK, the kind of literary elite, shall we say, that look down their noses at crime, whereas in France crime is regarded as much as literature as anything else and the roman noir are seen as novels,” he said.

Mr May is often praised for the evocative descriptions and thorough research that bring his stories to life - whether set in France (The Enzo Files), Beijing and Shanghai (The China Thrillers), London (Lockdown), or Scotland’s Outer Hebrides (The Lewis Trilogy).

“The setting for a book is very important. It is as much a character as the actual characters. Places have moods, they influence the way people are. Good weather. Bad weather. All those things affect people and affect plot and the way you tell a story,” said Mr May.

In the days following his death, John Swinney, First Minister of Scotland, praised Mr May’s “stunning” description of events in “some of the most precious places in our landscape.”

An upcoming publication 

Although Mr May had announced his retirement, he decided to write a final book, Island of the Dead, which was completed in July this year. 

The murder mystery novel is inspired by the setting of St. Kilda, a remote group of islands 40 miles west of the Outer Hebrides.

Mr May was planning to complete a farewell tour of Scotland and Lewis to coincide with its publication on January 14, 2027.