WRITERS ABROAD MAGAZINE: THE THIRD SPACE
AUTHOR INTERVIEW: PETER MAY
Interviewed by LESLEY TRUCHET
Peter May is a Scottish novelist
of international renown and the
recipient of writing awards both
in Europe and America.
He has written several series of
crime novels and a number of
stand-alone novels and has
clocked up more than two
million book sales in the UK
and several million
internationally.
How long have you been writing and how did you start?
I wrote my first book when I was four years old! A few pages with some large
writing scrawled across, divided into chapters. My mum helped me sew the
pages together and I designed a cover for it. It’s on YouTube.
I always knew I wanted to write, completing a novel in my teens though it was
never published. I sent my first serious book to a publisher when I was 19,
receiving a rejection letter explaining that my manuscript was too short for
publication. They added: ‘But we do like it. It has a direct and emphatic
narrative style and an oddly memorable – even idyllic flavour about it. We
would like to see anything you write in future.’ I kept that letter. Those words of
encouragement playe d an important part in inspiring me to keep writing. I
actually met that editor, Philip Ziegler, 42 years later. You can read about it
here.
My first book was published when I was 26. It was turned into a television
series and for 20 years I was involved in more than 1,000 episodes of television
drama either as the creator, script-writer, editor or producer but only managed
to write a couple of books during that period. I quit television to write novels.
How many books have you written and what genre(s) do they fall into?
I’ve written 23 books: thrillers, police procedurals, forensic investigations and
psychological dramas. Crime in all its forms allows a writer to tackle stories set
in any country, involving any type or class of person, in any profession.
I’ve tackled stories involving genetic modification, drugs in sport and organ
theft, and explored different cultures, in China, France and the Outer Hebrides
of Scotland. The setting almost becomes a character in the story.
I’m currently working on a standalone book that starts in Paris with a murder
but takes readers back to the Isle of Harris. It will be published in January
2018.
22 | MAY 2017