Several years ago he alerted me to the potential disaster that was looming due to our dwindling bee population, and the repercussions for the world if no action was taken. Along with other insect pollinators, the bee is responsible for the production of one mouthful of food in every three that we eat. Without bees there would be widespread famine. This week the final book in the Lewis Trilogy hits the streets of Norway and the expectations are high that it will follow the success of the first two books. The Norwegians are really taking the trilogy to their hearts. He says: “I suppose I have perhaps a slightly louder voice than most people. But in the end I decided I couldn’t write about climate change in itself, that’s not a story you can manage in terms of a book.” It’s quite a departure from Peter’s regular genre of writing, though his crime books – particularly his standalones – have always taken his readers to different places and ways of life many people might not have encountered before.

And just for a bit of fun, here is one of the out-takes from our attempt to replicate the original photograph. I don’t know how many dozen pictures we took, but we almost invariably broke down in floods of laughter. How we ever managed to get one with straight faces I will never know. Imagining the details of a futuristic life in a 2051 life, things like how people would be transported, and would communicate with each other – phones? or something more futuristic? were just two examples where Peter used his imagination, but also not even futuristic, but current developments, like eVTOLS – vertical take-off and landing vehicles or electric helicopters. I’m currently writing a new novel which will be published early 2018 on both sides of the Atlantic. Details of that will be released soon, but I can reveal that after opening in Paris, the action shifts to the Hebridean island of Lewis. And finally… I decided to explore this illness through the character of a middle-aged woman, Ana, delving into her experience through a first person narration. Although not the principal character, she is central to the story. We discover that she was afflicted in early childhood with hearing problems, then diagnosed with Usher Syndrome in her teens, when she developed “night blindness”, which is often a precursor to vision loss caused by a disease known as retinitis pigmentosa, or RP. We accompany her on her nightmare journey into complete hearing loss and total blindness, and through her limited senses learn first hand about the book’s main antagonist when he takes her hostage.

For the album cover, Stephen and I tried to replicate a photograph that was taken of us in a photobooth in Euston Station during that fateful trip. We spent our last half crown on it (never dreaming then, that it would end up all over something called the internet nearly half a century later). It’s an interesting comparison. 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 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. As I was one of the nominees, a limo arrived at our hotel to take us to the Grosvenor House Hotel where the dinner and awards ceremony was being televised. Red carpet and photographers greeted me and I was asked to stop and pose before we went through to the champagne reception and awards dinner.

And although it might seem strange to say that I was uplifted, even inspired by this letter, that is exactly how I felt. It was sent to me by an editor called Philip Ziegler, and his words of praise and encouragement are perhaps the only things that sustained me through all the difficult years that lay ahead. 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!

from the Book Depository Meet me on the launch tour for “The Man With No Face” Monday 14th January – Glasgow Speaking of which, I’d like to take this opportunity to wish all my readers a very happy and prosperous New Year! When master of ceremonies Barry Forshaw announced the winner, he quoted Sue Wilkinson, the chair of the 2021 committee who said: ‘Peter May infuses his books with a real sense of place, whether it be China, France or the Hebrides. His books are tense, atmospheric and complex but always utterly absorbing.’

It was dated January 25th, 1971, which seemed auspicious since it was also the birthday of the great Scottish Bard, Rabbie Burns. When I was 18 years old I made my first serious attempt to write a novel. I had written stories throughout most of my teenage years, including a teenage fantasy about the group I played in called “The Aristokrats”. The book was entitled “The Aristokrats in Spain”, and it ran to around 50,000 words. If nothing else, it taught me that I could write at length, but it could never have been described as serious. Much of the story is set in the West of Scotland, Kinlochleven, where in 2051 there is nuclear power. But Kinlochleven has an interesting past, as far as power innovations are concerned. Peter during research for an earlier title, Entry Island. But not long before the climate change conference in Glasgow, Peter – the former award-winning journalist – turned again to some of those reporter’s basic skills he has used over the years researching his novels to do some deeper study into the facts about climate change. Peter Kay's new autobiography, which will focus on his work in the world of television, will be published in September 2023.

Social media has a lot to answer for

It was shortly after his retirement that I first encountered him online, when I was looking for an expert to advise me on genetics for my book, “ The Firemaker”, the first in a series of thrillers set in China. He took me step-by-step through the process of genetically engineering foodstuffs – a highly complex scientific procedure not at all easy for the layman to understand. With my new novel, Entry Island, due out on Kindle tomorrow, I thought I would share the story behind it with my readers. Peter said: “Thirty years into the future is not really very far. Thirty years ago I would have just started filming the Gaelic drama series Machair and that feels like yesterday to me. Mt wife assured me it looked good, but as far as I was concerned, it was a scratchy, constricting, suffocating experience and I wasn’t sure I could stand a whole night of starched shirt, tie and buttoned-up waistcoat. Portrait” was different. It was a story of youthful love, disillusion and eventual tragedy. I was cutting my real writer’s teeth. And it was my first step on a long and difficult road that would be full of frustration and rejection. It was short, only about 25,000 words – not a commercially viable length – so my expectations were not high. All the same, I was excited when a letter from Collins Publishers finally dropped through the letterbox.

The good news is that publication dates are bringing North America closer with the UK, Australia and New Zealand. 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…Maybe if bestselling Scottish thriller writer Peter May hadn’t started reading around climate change and its effects in the run-up to COP26, he would never have written his new book set in the future. The new book, Peter May's A Winter Grave is set in a world affected by climate change.