I'LL KEEP YOU SAFE :: Peter May

A version of this review previously appeared in Shelf Awareness and is reprinted here with permission.

While in Paris for an international fabric fair, Niamh Macfarlane accuses her husband and business partner, Ruairidh, of having an affair with fashion designer Irina Vetrov. He vehemently denies being unfaithful and storms out of their hotel, only to be picked up by Vetrov and driven away in her Mercedes as Niamh looks on. Distraught, Niamh rushes to chase after them and is rocked by an explosion that obliterates the Mercedes.

Niamh is dumbstruck by the bombing and its odd aftermath, including missing belongings, mysterious phone calls and a sudden visit from a long-estranged friend and business associate. Her return home to the Hebrides does not bring normalcy, and clues to Ruairidh's death are cleverly woven into the timeline via flashbacks to the couple's shared childhood and tragic inter-family drama. 

I'll Keep You Safe, a standalone thriller from Peter May, starts with a bang, and continues as a twisty slow burn that explores decades of history between Niamh and Ruairidh, their families, associates and friends. May treats his readers as intelligent and curious, writing in English, French and Scots Gaelic, and using local jargon, adding to the atmosphere and authenticity.

As always, May brings a glorious sense of place to the narrative. To read Peter May is to believe Mother Nature invented the Hebrides for him to describe them. His storytelling overshadows a few errant plot arcs and some bent boundaries of believability, resulting in an entrancing tale of romance and intrigue.

STREET SENSE: Decades of tragedy and romance unfold as the backdrop to the mysterious death of a husband accused of betrayal. This is not my favorite of May's works and while I loved the family history and mystery aspects, it took off on some arcs that just weren't for me. Overall, it's still Peter F'ing May.

A FAVORITE PASSAGE:  This passage is part of a description of a house built by Niamh and Ruairidh with curved windows that overlook the ocean:

In architect had been concerned by the size of the windows that Niamh and Ruairidh demanded. In the end he had come up with a design that divided the view into five still-life paintings which together framed the panorama. Except that these paintings were never still. They spooled an ever-changing movie of seascape illuminated by sunlight or moonlight, dramatized by a sky that sometimes raged, sometimes smiled, and often glowered.

COVER NERD SAYS: The covers of Peter May's work have become so distinctive that one could cover up the words and make a fairly educated guess who wrote the book. In this instance, that's a good thing, as the black and white images, usually of the Hebrides, are normally fantastic. Even on those occasions when a color image is used, the stark, haunting effect remains.

COFFIN ROAD :: Peter May

Peter May returns to the Outer Hebrides, the setting of his mesmerizing Lewis Trilogy, with his new standalone novel Coffin Road. The Hebrides is rugged land that takes on a life of its own in May’s masterful hands, and one morning its churning ocean spits a man onto the beach after taking his memory. With few clues, he has to figure out who he is, what he's doing on the Isle of Harris, and who doesn't want him doing it.

Meanwhile, in Edinburgh, a troubled young girl digs into the cause of her father's suicide and a detective investigates a bludgeoned body found at a remote lighthouse station. Soon the amnesiac, the detective and the teenager are caught up in high stakes mysteries fraught with the potential for violence and a fascinating (and non-preaching) environmental issue at their core.

May is second to none when it comes to sense of place. He writes landscape so artfully even paragraphs-long descriptions don't detract from the pace of this thriller:

"And now I am aware of the wind. Tugging at my clothes, sending myriad grains of sand in a veil of whisper-thin gauze across the beach in currents and eddies, like water."

May's lyrical writing brings full color to the scenery and the narrative intrigues from start to finish as the three arcs begin to intertwine and race to a final showdown. Coffin Road is an atmospheric thriller that delves into issues of identity, sacrifice and the greater good.

STREET SENSE: With Coffin Road, May has gifted his readers with another engaging mystery infused with the personality of the Hebrides as only he can write it.  

A FAVORITE PASSAGE: With the rain running down my face, it would be hard to tell if I was crying. And if I were to cry, they would be tears of pure frustration. Along with the return, perhaps, of fear. For the rock of certainty on which I have built my hopes turns out to have been the same of self-deception.

COVER NERD SAYS: When a friend (hi, Shaina!) saw this book reviewed in Shelf Awareness she thought to herself, "Hmm, this looks like a book that Lauren would review." Which is both totally uncanny and cool and also tells me perhaps I'm a bit too easy to read. It's no secret I like the dark stuff, so it's not going to shock you to learn that I love this cover. All of May's covers, actually, since the publisher has started giving them all a similar look. I think this is a smart move, creating a cover theme that readers can look at and recognize as an author they enjoy. This one is as dark and brooding as its innards and I'm looking forward to the next time I can spot one like it in upcoming releases. (Disclosure: It feels like it's 8 million o'clock right now, so that is quite rambly and perhaps doesn't even make sense, but there you have it.)

A version of this review previously appeared in Shelf Awareness.

AWFUL ROAD TRIPS, AWESOME READING

It was simply by chance I read Peter May's Runaway at the same time I read Bill Beverly's Dodgers. I had an inkling what each was about, but had no idea I was about to go on two very different but equally satisfying road trips.

"It was Jack's idea to retrace their footsteps of all those years before, as if in doing so they might find something they had lost on the way."

I fell in love with Peter May's writing when I was caught blindsided by the beauty and genius of The Blackhouse, the first in May's outstanding Hebrides crime fiction trilogy (highly recommended). How had I not heard of this talent?

Despite my adoration, I was a little anxious when starting Runaway, May's latest standalone to be published in the U.S. Would I love the writing outside the magic of the Hebrides? I need not have worried, May is simply a master. Although quite different from the trilogy, Runaway has the same beautiful prose, ability to set a stage, and artful characterization.

In 1965, five young bandmates run away to London, to escape their various less-than-stellar home situations and seek musical stardom. Less than a year later, only some of them return, all of them marked and changed by the experience. Runaway opens on a parallel track, fifty years later, with a man's murder in a London apartment. The impact of that murder echoes to Glasgow, where one of the original five is terminally ill. He convinces his remaining friends to make a return trip to London to settle some mysterious unfinished business related to the original trip that scarred them all,

At turns funny (a grandson hijacked into driving the men on their return trip leads to both poignancy and hilarity) and tragic, I was fully invested in both journeys as each wound towards the ultimate reveal. May has a way of painting full characters and locations without wasting time or space. Reading Runaway was a constant push and pull between wanting to race to know what happens at the same time I wanted to linger over May's words and they emotions they carried.

STREET SENSE:  A story of friendship, history, the craziness of the 60s, love, failure, loss, betrayal and, just maybe, redemption, Runaway is much more than a mystery yet never feels over-written despite its breadth. And even if you're not into any of those things, the mystery itself is enough to carry the day and is brought to a more-than-satisfying conclusion. You owe it to yourself to read Peter May.

A FAVORITE PASSAGE:  How could I have known then that failure of ambition is like a long, lingering death, and that disappointment with your life never goes away? It only grows stronger with the passage of time, as the clock ticks off the remaining days of your life, and any residual hope slips like sand through arthritic fingers.

COVER NERD SAYS:  It's probably unfair of me to judge this cover on its own, as I have an affinity for May's covers (the most recent of which, on the U.S. publications, are thematically similar) and if it's written by Peter May I really don't care what it looks like. That being said, I love the imagery and contrast of this cover and it would have caught my eye even if I didn't recognize it as May's work at first glance.

"Losing the house -- it was going to be on him. He owned the daytime boys; he owned their failure."

Bill Beverly's Dodgers presents a different type of road trip altogether, and carries an even heavier weight. Easton is 15, making a living in Los Angeles guarding a drug house with his crew. When things go south at the house, East is packed in a van (sans phones or other personal items) with three other gang members and sent on a road trip to Wisconsin to deal with some specific gang business.

Included in the van is East's brother, Ty, 13, who is as street-tough and closed-off as East is thoughtful and searching. Ty rides in the back of the van, quiet, unafraid, uncaring and strung tight. Michael Wilson, the oldest and supposed leader at 17, is a loose--goose accident waiting to happen. And finally, Walter, a smart, over-weight unknown. Mixed in a van on the road to violence together, the four are a recipe for disaster.

The tension comes from all fronts, both within the van between the boys and outside the van with the greater world, as four young black boys cross the middle of America. As the van makes its way to and from Wisconsin, each boy will make decisions that change them all and force them to decide what kind of men they want to be.

STREET SENSE:  A tense, gut-churning coming-of-age story dropped into some gritty crime fiction, Dodgers is a finely-tuned work. With stark prose peppered with beautiful exposition (and one ingenious shift in tense), Beverly presents real characters and puts them in situations that scream with tension. This one is haunting.

A FAVORITE PASSAGE:  I chose two, and it was difficult. These two are a contrast between Beverly's ability to say everything in just a few words, and to paint a picture worth reading a long paragraph about. And when that paragraph is about the weather or surroundings and it still pulls me in, that's some great writing.

Euphoria had chased off the morning chill. It was easy to explain: new guns. Plenty of bullets.

The trees grew higher--and closer--to the road. Pines, not thin and fire-hungry like California's, but tight-knit, impassable, winter-coated trees, their cones as thick as cats on the branches, green so deep it was blackish. Passing so close, they ripped East's eyes with their tiny, intimate spaces, tree to tree, branch to branch, too quick to see. They flashed by like the opposite of mountains, the grand spaces, the eons of time. Here, too many things to see and zero time to see anything. Around the back of every trunk, something could be hiding. East closed his eyes, but he didn't feel comfortable not watching either--Walter, the van, the narrow road. The deep, unforgiving ditches, the reaching trees. His eyes saw faces in them, every frightened bird an attacker, every mailbox a blaze of threatening color.

COVER NERD SAYS: No surprise, this cover immediately caught my eye. It's down-and-dirty gritty, and, if accurate, I knew I would like what was inside. I did, indeed. I love the contrast between the crisscrossing freeways and the crisscrossing power lines, in particular, but everything about this cover, from the black and white image, to the font, to the one splash of color, screams at me to read Dodgers.