The engines were put under wraps and sat untouched in the works yard for several years until one day they mysteriously disappeared. So I despatched the manuscript to a metaphorical drawer – a file in my Dropbox which has spent the last fifteen years gathering dust in the ether. One victim is a journalist, the other a Cabinet Minister: the double-assassination witnessed by the former’s autistic daughter. This girl recalls every detail about her father’s killer – except for one.

I had my first mobile phone, a Sony ‘Mars bar’ as they called them then, and it was very hard to get a signal anywhere!” One installed computer systems all over the world for a multi-national corporation, the other was employed as a freelance consultant by major organisations initialising untried computer systems in areas of financial or logistical sensitivity. Each had an unerring propensity for rubbing employers and co-workers up the wrong way. Both manage to offend friends and family with regular ease, never with intent, but always with surprise and regret when the effect of their words becomes belatedly apparent. Anyway, I have recorded a video message if you want to know more about my news, and upcoming books, you can hear it straight from the horse’s mouth… The hard cover edition of I’ll Keep You Safe came out last week in the USA and Canada, so readers in North America are no longer having to wait a whole year for the latest book. It is hoped that in the future, the publication dates of the English language editions will be simultaneous worldwide. Then, with the development of my story, came his only clue – a map with the coffin road traced in marker pen. Filled with a deep sense of dread, he knows that following in the footsteps of the dead is the only chance he has to restore meaning to his life, and that his only hope is that the coffin road will lead him to revelation.

Peter May Best Books

I chose the year 2051. It’s the year I would turn 100 if I were to survive, though I don’t expect to be around then. I wouldn’t want to be if all my predictions turn out to be accurate,” Peter laughed. I am not often moved to blog about things I read in the tabloid press, but I was incensed by this ignorant, poorly researched piece of trash “journalism” perpetrated by a pompous columnist called Richard Godwin in a rag called the London Evening Standard. The Isle of Harris was calling me. It was the perfect place. And what better opportunity would I have to realise my vision for that opening scene of the man staggering to his feet, drenched an confused, than in one of the most dramatic and beautiful locations in the world?

I didn’t know of his death for over a year. Joe had worked and lived in London, Ontario, in Canada, for 23 years before retiring in 1996 from the University of Western Ontario to become Professor Emeritus in Genetics. I had not been in touch with him since completing my research for the book “ Coffin Road”, about bees and neonicotinoids – a book inspired by Joe’s relentless search for answers to the mystery of the world’s disappearing bees. He had, at that time, been on dialysis, but I’d had no idea that death was so close. And during all my subsequent visits, right up until 2004, I bore witness to the transformation of a country, from the closed, almost mediaeval world of Mao Zedong, to the vision of modern China set in train by Deng Xioaping. Those changes are reflected in the six books of The China Thrillers, which span probably the greatest and fastest period of change in Chinese history.The two conflicts almost every time, both were trying to solve the issue in their way. This tug-of-war between the two makes the story fun to read. But that’s not all. Yan later learns who Campbell is, and she is now assigned to work with him investigating a case. I had been shortlisted for the Dagger in the Library. This award recognises the popularity of an author’s body of work with readers and users of libraries. The judges committee is made up of librarians from across the country. And I’d like to thank my readers around the world for their continued – and growing – support. I met many hundreds of you in person at book events all over the UK, in France and in Italy, but I was very disappointed to have to cancel the US and Canada tour in 2015 because of unexpectedly having to go into hospital for surgery. The good news is that I’m fully recovered and I hope to make it over to North America later in 2016. While the China Thrillers is perhaps Peter May’s most famous and read series, the Lewis trilogy is his most critically acclaimed series. Many critics call it his most finely crafted series, with just three books in the series. So what’s so great about this series? My job was to grasp the basic principles, and makes them easily understood by a popular readership. Joe walked me through the complexities, enabling me to do just that. With great forbearance he answered all my silly questions, and spelled out for me with great clarity exactly how genetic modification works.

My latest book, A Silent Death, a brand new thriller set in the South of Spain near Gibraltar will be coming out in January in the UK and March in the USA and I will be touring both sides of the Atlantic to celebrate the launch. Below are the dates of the UK tour. (Details of my April trip to the USA and Canada will be coming soon.) UK TOUR

In the summer, I travelled to Lewis with a French film crew to make a documentary about The Lewis Trilogy which will be broadcast in France in January 2014.

Confined to France and a 40 km radius from our home, I had to come up with a new idea, and so The Night Gate was conceived. A new adventure for Enzo Macleod, it has two timelines, one present day and one during the second world war, mainly set in and around Carennac and Saint-Céré, and other places I know well in France. One scene even takes place in the apartment above the garage which is now my music studio where, in reality during the war, many works of art from the Louvre were hidden from the Nazis! It is with great sadness that I write, belatedly, in tribute to my friend and adviser on all things scientific, Professor Joe Cummins, who died just over two years ago after a lengthy battle with cancer.

ENTRY ISLAND wins French Literary Award

Many clan chiefs were disposessed of their land and a new generation of landowner took over the vast Highland estates they vacated. The crofters, whose ancestors had worked the land for centuries, were seen as a burden. They made no money from the land, which provided subsistence only, and were unable to pay rent. So, with financial incentives from the government, this new breed of landowner systematically began to replace people with sheep, which were regarded as a more economically viable use of the land. And the future of Scotland’s politics and government is another area Peter had to think through for his novel. Events run at independent bookstores are an absolute pleasure. Talks and Q&A sessions take place in an intimate environment, with chairs crammed into small spaces between canyons of books. The bookstore owners know their customers and encourage them to come along to listen to and meet authors who are new to them. Fans get the chance to mingle and talk with authors and other readers. And after the fans have gone home, the author stays on at the bookstore to sign piles of books that the owner then goes on to hand-sell, marketing via newsletters to readers further afield, or who couldn’t come along that night.