Peter May

Peter May was a novelist, originally from Glasgow but lived and worked in France. He started out as a journalist, studying at the Edinburgh College of Commerce, and winning the Fraser Award aged just 21 for his writing. He was named Scotland’s Young Journalist of the Year in 1973. He wrote for The Scotsman and the Glasgow Evening Times, before moving to the BBC to write full-time for television in 1978.

His first novel, The Reporter, was published in 1977, which he adapted for television as the 13-part series The Standard. He wrote a number of television dramas, and co-created the Gaelic language serial Machair. Peter May returned to novel writing with the China Thrillers series of novels; one of the books, Snakehead, won the Prix Intramuros prize in France in 2007. May was an honorary member of the Chinese Crime Writers Association.

A second series of novels, The Enzo Files, is set in France. May meticulously researched the background to his novels, through regular visits to China, and even set himself up as a virtual private eye in Second Life to research the background to Virtually Dead. His series of novels, The Lewis Trilogy, is set on the Isle of Lewis, and begins with The Blackhouse, published in 2011. The novel won the 2010 Prix des Lecteurs in France. In 2014, Entry Island won both the Deanston’s Scottish Crime Novel of the Year and the UK’s ITV Crime Thriller Book Club Best Read of the Year Award. May’s books have sold more than twelve million copies worldwide. In 2025 May was awarded France’s prestigious Grand Prix de Litterature Policiere.