Peter May, the crime writer whose bestselling novels set on the Isle of Lewis brought him international literary acclaim, has died aged 74. His first book in the Lewis trilogy, The Blackhouse, introduced detective Fin Macleod, a Lewis-born policeman living in Edinburgh who returns to the island to investigate a murder, confronting dark memories of why he had been glad to leave.
From rejection to bestseller
Several UK publishers turned down The Blackhouse, so it was first released in France in 2009, where it became a major success. London publisher Quercus subsequently acquired the rights, and when the novel entered UK bestseller charts, they suggested May write a trilogy. He initially joked this would be impossible, as murders occur on Lewis only once every 50 years, but he was soon persuaded. The Lewis Man (2011) and The Chessmen (2012) followed, and his books earned literary awards in the UK, France, China and the US.
Gaelic television roots
May was a Glaswegian whose connection with the Hebrides began in the early 1990s while he worked as a writer for Scottish Television (STV). Encouraged to produce Gaelic language programmes as part of the channel's franchise remit, STV was keen to make the first Gaelic soap opera. The head of Gaelic, Rhoda Macdonald, sent May and his wife, Janice Hally, to Lewis to research the possibilities, including finding actors and writers in the language.
The couple spent time living in a campervan at Ness, the island's most northerly point, and returned with the idea for a subtitled series called Machair, which ran for six years on STV. May became its director and Hally the main scriptwriter. Machair proved key to May's future success: he was an acute listener, storing away stories and characters that later emerged in the Lewis trilogy and other island-based novels such as Coffin Road (2016), I'll Keep You Safe (2018) and The Black Loch (2024). He sold 15 million copies of his books worldwide, and fans at the Visit Outer Hebrides tourist board found his books increased visitor numbers, with Lewis even having a Peter May Trail celebrating locations from his novels.
Early life and career
Born in Glasgow to Leslie, a teacher, and his wife Molly, May grew up in the suburb of Clarkston. A rebellious youth, he played in a rock band called the Aristokrats and was expelled from Eastwood secondary school. He went to London with teenage pals from the band, but when money ran out, he returned home to work at the National Savings Bank (now NS&I), an experience that provided material for his later novel Runaway (2015), in which five teenage musicians from Glasgow go to London in search of stardom but get caught up in a murder.
May left the bank to take a journalism course at Edinburgh College of Commerce, then worked as a reporter at the Paisley Daily Express, Glasgow Evening Times and the Scotsman. He turned personal experience into The Reporter (1978), adapted into a 13-part BBC Scotland series, The Standard, the same year. This led him into television and a 15-year stint with STV, where he wrote more than 200 episodes of the soap Take the High Road and eventually was sent to Lewis for the research that led to Machair.
Years later, May confessed that during that period he also fitted in a visit to China, another setting for his crime novels. The China Thrillers (1999-2010) won him acclaim and awards in China, though it was his time on Lewis that brought greater commercial success. In all, May had 71 books published on a wide range of themes. During the Covid-19 period, he remembered a novel he had written 15 years earlier about murderers pursued in London during a global pandemic; Lockdown, eventually published in 2020, had been rejected at the time as too far-fetched.
Final works and legacy
After announcing his intended retirement, May returned to insular themes for his final book, Island of the Dead, set on a fictional archipelago 40 miles into the Atlantic bearing a striking resemblance to St Kilda. It is due to be published in January. He is survived by Janice, whom he married in 1990, and a daughter, Carol, from his first marriage to Katrina Hutcheson, which ended in divorce. Peter May, novelist, was born on 20 December 1951 and died on 25 September 2026.
