Well, while awaiting the release of The Chess Men, the final book in The Lewis Trilogy – in September in France and next January in the UK, I was keeping my head down and getting to work on a new idea. However, if I thought I was going to have some quiet time to research and think, I was wrong. The last couple of weeks have been – well, see for yourself…
Le Télégramme Newspaper Readers’ Prize
The first thing to interrupt my thinking time was the news that The French edition of The Lewis Man (L’Homme de Lewis) had won the Prix des Lecteurs du Télégramme!
I had been shortlisted for this prize earlier in the year, so I knew that I was one of six authors whose books would be read and voted on by the readers of France’s Le Télégramme newspaper. Along with the shortlisting came a requirement to make bookstores appearances and give talks, as well as do video interviews for French television and the internet sites of the newspaper and bookstores. The shortlisted books were available in bookstores and libraries and over a period of months, readers of the Télégramme newspaper were required to register in order to participate and vote for their favourite. Readers’ prizes like this are special because there are no politics involved; it’s a simple case of readers (the most important people in writers’ lives) reading the books and saying which one had pleased them the most.
Winning the prize meant returning to Brest with a 1500 kilometre round trip for another round of nerve-wracking TV and newspaper interviews all in French, along with the award ceremony, dinner, and the prize itself – a cheque for 10,000 Euros.
You can read about it here:
http://www.prlog.org/11880216-scottish-island-stories-win-french-readers-hearts.html
Movie of The Killing Room
While I was in Brest, the Cannes Film Festival was taking place and I wasn’t able to be there for the official announcement that a deal had finally been confirmed to make The Killing Room – the third of my China Thrillers – into a movie. Alexis Dantec and Fred Bellaiche’s production company, French Connection, optioned the rights to The Killing Room two years ago, but getting past the Chinese censors was posing a problem for them. The answer proved to be an unusual one: the company has decided to transpose the novel’s original setting of Shanghai and Beijing to Seoul, Li Yan will become a Korean cop and Margaret Campbell will become a French pathologist!
For more about the crazy world of movie-making, here is the article announcing the project:
http://www.screendaily.com/news/production/french-connection-links-with-korean-dream-capture/5042319.article
Shortlisted for Dagger in the Library Award
The day after I won the Télégramme prize, I received the fantastic news that I have been shortlisted for the British Crime Writers’ Association’s “Dagger in the Library” Award. This prize is decided by a judging panel of librarians, and it is awarded not for one particular book, but instead for a writer’s body of work, and for writers who have built up a following with library readers but who have not yet made a big breakthrough.
Here’s how the judges described me: “An accomplished author, at the height of his powers with this latest trilogy. He manages to vary his settings while always creating completely believable characters.” Read more about “The Dagger in the Library” and the shortlist here:
http://www.thecwa.co.uk/daggers/2012/library.html
What will follow the Lewis Trilogy?
With all of these distractions it has been hard to focus. But an idea has been running around in my mind for a few months and I finally harnessed it and pulled together my first thoughts to present to my editor at Quercus. After an anxious wait while he considered it, he came back to me with good news. He loves it! And I hope you will too, but you’ll have to wait for a while to find out more about it. I have to develop the story and the characters, research it, write it, then it has to go through the whole publishing process, and finally it will reach you in 2014!
But first you have to find out how the Lewis Trilogy ends. The final book, The Chess Men, will be out in the UK in January 2013, and if you haven’t already downloaded the excerpt to whet your appetite, then you can find it here:
http://www.ur-web.net/PeterMayMain/TheChessMenDownload.html
Scottish Visits
I will be visiting…
Inverness on 25th July, for the Inverness Festival
Edinburgh, 16th – 18th August for the Edinburgh Book Festival, for an event at Peppers Theatre 6.45pm 16th August
Stirling on 13th September for “Off The Page” festival hosted by Stirling’s libraries.
and staying in Stirling for the “Bloody Scotland” crime writing festival 14th – 16th September, appearing at this event: http://www.bloodyscotland.com/island-crime/
Peter May Author 
Wow Peter such exciting and amazing news !!! Congratulations on all you latest achievements, I’m very intrigued to find out more about the new tricks you are keeping up your sleeve for 2014… I’d just like to let you know that all my friends and family are now fans of the Lewis trilogy and can’t wait for the next instalment to come out ! “Bon courage” with the writing and the many events and prize givings and hope to cross paths at some point : any signings due in the north of France ? A bientôt, V.
Hey V! Delighted that you are all into the Lewis Trilogy! The third and final tome comes out in France at the end of September. It is called “Le braconnier du lac perdu” (The Chess Men in English – but that isn’t out till January!). I will be in the north of France on the 16th and 17th of June at the Salon des Polars at Le Havre (Les Ancres Noires). Don’t know if that’s near you, but it would be great to see you if it is. A+ P
Every award and accolade you receive confirms your astounding creative writing talent is appreciated in any language. The cream rises to the top. Just winding up Snakehead and about to hit The Killing Room that means I have all those others to read which is great.
Thomas Mackay King
Hi Thomas. You are FAR too kind! Glad you are enjoying the books, all the same.
My goodness what a busy time for you, congratulations on all your accolades. I am longing to read ‘The Chess Men’ after the little ‘teaser’, though how I will feel when the story of Fin and Marsaili is no more… well; I have yet to cross that bridge….. I so look forward to more thrilling novels which I know you are bursting to announce to your faithful readers. When I read a good book, I can picture the characteristics of the people in the story. I can feel the atmosphere of the places…I will admit to wearing couple of extra layers when reading The Lewis Man. To me reading a good book is like watching a good play, so I say without hesitation how much I enjoy your books Peter, well done and thank you.
Sincerely Linda Haynes
Thanks, Linda. Yes, a busy time, but with the follow-on from the Lewis Trilogy now starting to take shape, an exciting one, too. Off to Canada in September, and then a book tour of the States in October, before returning in time for the Crime festival at Cognac, where “The Lewis Man” is shortlisted for the Prix International!
Wow…how do you fit any writing time in? So pleased you are working on a new idea but I don’t understand when.
🙂 It’s not easy, DJ, believe me. But the demands these days on a writer to be actively and almost continuously involved in promotion are enormous. I am not contractually due to deliver my next book till the end of May 2013, but I already have a well-developed story and am totally immersed in the research, which will culminate in trips to the Hebrides and to Canada in September. So I will storyline in October and start writing in November, and hope to deliver in February. During that time, I also have a 30,000 word text to write for another book – but more of that later!
Deep breath Peter and enjoy. Thank you for all your hard work, because we certainly love your books 🙂
🙂 Thanks, Linda. People enjoying them is what makes it all worthwhile!
I have just finished “The Black House”…………The Lewis Man on it’s way…and cannot wait to read the rest! Haven’t been this excited about a new author ( to me, anyway) in years and immensely proud he’s a fellow Scot!!!! I also read your blog on the “real” Marsaili…….. perhaps it’s your honesty and writing from the heart that comes out in your books and has made one more committed fan. Look forward to reading more books and blogs and news….and wish I was “home” right now to hear you speak! My daughter has met you through Waterstones in Glasgow and told me straight away that you were a lovely man…….now I know, a brilliant writer as well!
Slainte
🙂 Delighted you are enjoying the books. Tell your daughter to make herself known to me when I am back in Glasgow for the launch of The Chessmen. Hope The Lewis Man will please you just as much!
I certainly will……to all of the above! When is the launch?
Early January. Don’t have a date yet.
I’ll keep an ey out, and sure she’ll tell me anyway 🙂