Peter May's Lewis Trilogy

“A prophet has no honour in his hometown,” is Jesus’ famous reflection about his lukewarm reception in Nazareth. The same could be said about Peter May whose detective novels were not well received in the English speaking world at first. The French, however, were enthused and May was awarded 9 different awards from 2006-2012 before the Americans and the Brits finally started to catch on. This may be because May’s work was first published in French—no takers among English-language publishers?
 
It’s no surprise that the Lewis Trilogy (The Blackhouse, Lewis Man, The Chess Men) was recommended to me by two French colleagues who loaned me their dour-looking copies of the French translations by Jean-René Dastugue. Once I got past the strangeness of reading people speaking English in French on the page, I was hooked on an incredible series.

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