LEARNING FROM LOCKDOWN

It’s an old truism that you should write what you know, but the latest novel by star Scottish crime writer Peter May puts a whole new spin on writing the familiar.

In early 2020, Peter, bestselling and multiaward winning author of the China series and the multi-million-selling Lewis Trilogy, was due to head out on one of his big, adventurous research trips. ‘I’d been working for several months on a book set in Svalbard,’ says Peter on Skype from his home in the South of France. ‘I had developed that fully and booked my research trip in May. I’d set up interviews with the governor, the chief of police, set up trips – that’s what I was going to be doing. Then the pandemic kicked in which meant I had to cancel the research trip which meant I had to give up that book.’

With his publishers awaiting a new book, Peter had to come up with an idea. Fast. ‘I found myself looking at a blank sheet of paper. Here in France we were in lockdown. I couldn’t travel. I had to come upon an idea in which I could use locations I knew and do my research on the internet.’

He took inspiration from a blog post he had written a couple of years ago. ‘I had gone, in 2019, along the road to the next village where there was an exhibition of all the works of art from the Louvre in the last war. They, David’s . Rolled round long wooden poles and too long to get into the chateau.’ So far, the story is close to home. What happens next couldn’t be made up. As we speak, can see into Peter’s writing room.