Newbook tookmeto darkplaces.I could’vehired ahitmanfor just$5000
Scots author on his shocking discoveries while researching new book and how he’s at a point in his career where he wants to enjoy success after a long journey
BEST-SELLING crime author Peter May was sitting at home in France on his computer with the sun streaming through the window researching his latest novel.
With just a couple of clicks he’d delved into the so-called “dark web” and discovered he could hire a hitman for $5000.
Peter, now 66, originally from Glasgow, is a stickler for detail so his books are accurate. That’s meant he’s travelled to some far-flung locations for his research – but he’s uncovered some uncomfortable information.
The former journalist said: “You want to know that what you’re presenting is absolutely accurate, just as you would if writing a story for a paper. You do the research and get your facts right. I think it’s important that your readers have confidence and trust you.”
He is published in 30 countries and has sold several million copies worldwide. For his latest book, I’ll Keep You Safe, his research took him to the Outer Hebrides as well as a journey into the criminal online world.
“Accessing the dark web was remarkably easy,” he said. “You can go online and download a browser that takes you into the dark web. It sounds very sinister but you’re just sitting on your computer.
“I was sitting surfing the dark web and landing on websites where you can buy illegal services with Bitcoin, the untraceable online currency.
“It was a world that was entirely new to me. It’s the online equivalent of walking through the backstreets in some alien city in the dead of night. I was always happy to log off.”
He discovered hitmen can cost from $5000 to $200,000.
Peter said he came across an Albanian mafia website which set out its services quite clearly – although he wasn’t sure whether it was for real. “It said, ‘If you want to kill someone or to beat the s**t out of them, you can hire a contract killer easily. Most are drug dealers but they do contract killing when short of cash’.”
For his latest book, he’s also researched groundbreaking forensic technology, where new techniques allow investigators to recover fingerprints from bomb-blasted particles.
The story is set between the Parisian world of high fashion and the rural islands of the Outer Hebrides and follows husband and wife, Niamh and Ruairidh Macfarlane. Their quiet life is turned upside when Ruairidh is killed by a car bomb during a busines trip to Paris and Niamh is named as the prime suspect.
Previous research has also been stomach-churning for Peter.
He said: “I recall being in the police morgue in Shanghai and a pathologist decided I should see a body”
He said the assistant went to one of the 80 refrigerated drawers and wheeled in a body of a man in his 20s who had been executed with a shot to his head.
Peter said: “He was opened up like something you might see hanging in a butchers’ shop.
“I asked why there had been an autopsy and was told there hadn’t been – they’d opened him up to remove his organs for transplant. These are things you stumble across when doing research.”
Peter wrote six novels known as the “China Thrillers”, so regularly travelled to the country.
He was also treated to a banquet as a special guest with his wife Janice Hally at the Imperial Restaurant on
I was landing on websites where you could buy illegal services with Bitcoin
PETER MAY
Tiananmen Square, where the Chinese leadership entertain visiting presidents and prime ministers.
Peter has been writing novels since his teens but after being expelled from school he ran off to London at 17 with friends in a band.
He said: “I was in a band in 1969 and after sleeping in parks and busking in the subway we ended up sleeping on the floor in Euston Station and spent our last half crown in a photo booth.
“We were young enough to survive it – but I wouldn’t recommend it.”
He eventually returned to Scotland, landed a job selling cars then applied for a journalism course in Edinburgh. He won one of only 12 places out of 300 applicants before joining the Paisley Daily Express – winning the Young Journalist of the Year title before moving to The Scotsman and the Glasgow Evening Times.
His first book, The Reporter, was published at the age of 25. It was adapted it into a prime-time 13-part TV
series called The Standard in 1978.
Peter said: “That launched me from newspapers into television and I spent most of the next 20 years writing for TV and as a producer.”
Peter met wife Janice when they worked together on Take the High Road. They were commissioned together to write Gaelic drama Machair.
He spent a lot of time in the Hebrides for the serial – then 10 years later decided to write novels based there.
He gave up TV work to focus on writing and moved to France with Janice in 1998.
The first book in his Lewis series, The Blackhouse, was initially turned down by British publishers.
Three or four years later, he mentioned it to a French publisher who loved it and it was translated and released in his adopted homeland in 2009, winning awards before it went global.
But success finally came in his late 50s. Once he became a bestseller, sales of his other books soared. Now, Peter is looking to enjoy life. He said: “I would like to ease off a bit and relax a little.” But for now, it’s business as usual. Peter said: “I am disciplined about writing. I spend three to four months developing and researching an idea and characters, before writing a very detailed synopsis. I then get up at 6am and write 3000 words a day, five days a week, usually finishing in about seven weeks.”
I’ll Keep You Safe is out now. Peter is touring Scotland from tomorrow until Wednesday. See maypeter.com for info.