What is the title of your latest release?
DEAD IN THREE TWO ONE
What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?
A man checks into a grand hotel on Brighton seafront. He has his arm around a beautiful woman, a smile on his face and a bomb in his suitcase.
How did you decide where your book was going to take place?
Ever since I read Arthur Hailey’s novel HOTEL, as a teenager, I have wanted to write a thriller that gets so deeply behind the scenes of a grand hotel as this book does. The location of Brighton & Hove is where my Detective, Roy Grace is based and it has several “grand dame” seafront hotels as perfect models for my fictitious one, The Royal Courteney
Would you hang out with your heroine in real life?
Absolutely! Cleo Grace who runs the Brighton and Hove mortuary is a fun person, despite her grim job. I’d definitely have a few glasses of wine with her any time!
What are three words that describe your hero?
Tenacious. Compassionate. Resilient.
What’s something you learned while writing this book?
I learned that hotel restaurant managers view guests as “ornaments”. How guests dressed can completely change the character of a restaurant: For instance if they are all in wet-weather hiking gear the place would look pretty shabby. It they were all in suits it could make the place look smart but perhaps too formal. If they were all in smart designer casual wear it could give a cool vibe. I learned that when a hotel offers valet parking, they always take photographs of the car when parked, so owners cannot later claim they’ve damaged them.
Do you edit as you draft or wait until you are totally done?
I edit constantly as I go along, sometimes moving chapters around, as if I was editing a movie. My wife reads every hundred pages or so and give me valuable feedback, and I have a former senior homicide detective also reading these, who gives me feedback to get all the police aspect correct. By the time I reach the end of my first draft, I always feel it is as good as I can get it at this stage, before it goes to my editing team. You only have one chance to wow your editor!
What’s your favorite foodie indulgence?
I have so many!!!! In summer it is dark chocolate coated frozen raspberries. In winter it is Maltesers – I keep bags of them in my office and also in my car!
Describe your writing space/office!
Answer: It’s a really spacious room that is part office and part my police museum! Word has spread across the police community around the world that I collect police memorabilia. I have numerous items, such as handcuffs, hats, badges, truncheons, whistles, early police phones as well as entire uniforms, etc. I love being surrounded by this stuff – it always inspires me. I also have a magnificent view across a wooded valley to a hill range called the South Downs. Sometimes it is a bad distraction!
Who is an author you admire?
Michael Connelly. I don’t know any other author writing crime thrillers who has the ring of authenticity he does.
Is there a book that changed your life?
Yes, for sure: I first read Graham Greene’s 1937 novel BRIGHTON ROCK, set in my home, when I was 14. When I had finished, I made myself a promise that one day I would try to write a thriller set in Brighton that was 10% as good as this book… Would I have become a mystery writer if I’d never read this book? I often wonder…
Tell us about when you got “the call.” (when you found out your book was going to be published). Or, for indie authors, when you decided to self-publish.
I actually had two calls - almost exactly 20 years apart! The first was in May 1980, after a decade of rejection letters, when my former agent phoned me to say I’d been offered a two-book deal on the spy novel I had written. It was one of the greatest moments of my life. But the day that book was published was one of the most disappointing! I rushed around bookshops all over the place, thinking I would see huge displays, and hardly any had it – and those that did just had one or two copies….
But in May 2000 it was very different. During the 1990s I’d switched from spy thrillers to psychological thrillers and during this time, had become very friendly with a homicide detective called Dave Gaylor, who took a great interest in. my writing and helped me with the police characters in my novels. Early in 2000 he was promoted to effectively head of homicide for Sussex, the county I live in and where Brighton is. I was on a brief vacation to Rome and was standing outside the Vatican when my agent, Carole Blake called me, bubbling with excitement. She’d just come off a call with the publishers Pan Macmillan, who said they’d just lost their No 1 crime writer, Peter Robinson, who had moved to Harper Collins. Might I be interested, they had asked her, in creating a fictional detective as a series character? I told her to wait five minutes and immediately rang Dave Gaylor. I asked him how he would feel about becoming the model for a fictional cop. He loved it! We’ve worked together closely on all my Roy Grace books, and when I got remarried in 2015, he was best man!
What’s your favorite genre to read?
I read very widely, and especially any book that is a runaway success – except fantasy and romantasy. But by far my favorite is mystery/crime thrillers.
What’s your favorite movie?
I guess a favorite movie is one you can never get bored of watching. I have two: The first is CASABLANCA. The second is Peter Sellers in RETURN OF THE PINK PANTHER.
What is your favorite season?
I love being outdoors – running and cycling. So summer for sure.
How do you like to celebrate your birthday?
I always have a dozen or so close friends to dinner. And I always read out the wonderful words of Hilaire Belloc to them: “From quiet homes and first beginnings, out to the undiscovered ends, nothing’s worth the wear of winning, save laughter and the love of friends.”
What’s a recent tv show/movie/book/podcast you highly recommend?
Nothing has stayed with my quite so much as HUMANKIND – A HOPEFULL HISTORY by Rutger Bregman. It is a wonderfully optimistic read in these troubled times -
What’s your favorite type of cuisine?
Seafood all the way. I love shellfish – crab, lobsters, scallops cooked simply, and raw or cooked oysters, with a crisp dry white wine. Heaven!
What do you do when you have free time?
I run most days, around 25 miles per week, cycle, and play tennis. We also have a huge menagerie of animals, including three dogs, three cats, hens, Indian runner ducks, rescue rabbits, guinea pigs, - we’ve also had alpacas, pygmy goats and emus. My wife and I spend an hour every morning walking the dogs and doing the grounds. Animals are so grounding, they just live in the moment and don’t know all the dark stuff going on in the world.
They just find a piece of carrot to nibble or a ray of sunlight to lie in and they are happy! They can teach us a lot…
What can readers expect from you next?
I have a book on writing coming out in 2028, which I’m very excited about! And there will be a new Roy Grace in 2027, all set on a cruise ship.
Roy Grace #22
From the multimillion copy bestselling author of The Hawk is Dead
Roy Grace is back in this gripping new instalment from number one bestselling author Peter James.
Brighton is celebrating. A killer is waiting. And Roy Grace is the target . . .
Brighton Pride is the biggest date on the city’s calendar with half a million people lost in the party. But behind the opulent façade of the Royal Courteney Hotel, a nightmare is checking in.
Dritan Dervishi, the cold-blooded consigliere for Albanian mob boss Roel Albazi, has arrived with a beautiful woman on his arm and a lethal secret in his suitcase. He has specifically requested Room 321 – a room with a perfect view of the sea, and a deadly proximity to a target he’s been dreaming of for years.
Detective Superintendent Roy Grace is already pushed to the limit, coordinating the city’s massive security operation amid whispers of a potential terrorist attack. But the threat is more personal than he could ever imagine. Back in a prison cell, his old nemesis Albazi is counting down the seconds to a revenge that will not just take Roy’s life, but erase his entire bloodline.
And as Roy and his wife Cleo prepare for a night of celebration at the Royal Courteney, they have no idea that they are stepping into a deadly trap.
As the relentless countdown nears zero, Roy must outsmart an invisible enemy and protect his loved ones before their time finally runs out . . .
23 million books sold.
Now a major ITV/BritBox show starring John Simm as Roy Grace.
Creator of Her Majesty Queen Camilla’s favourite fictional detective.Roy Grace is back in this gripping new instalment from number one bestselling author Peter James.
Brighton is celebrating. A killer is waiting. And Roy Grace is the target . . .
Brighton Pride is the biggest date on the city’s calendar with half a million people lost in the party. But behind the opulent façade of the Royal Courteney Hotel, a nightmare is checking in.
Dritan Dervishi, the cold-blooded consigliere for Albanian mob boss Roel Albazi, has arrived with a beautiful woman on his arm and a lethal secret in his suitcase. He has specifically requested Room 321 – a room with a perfect view of the sea, and a deadly proximity to a target he’s been dreaming of for years.
Detective Superintendent Roy Grace is already pushed to the limit, coordinating the city’s massive security operation amid whispers of a potential terrorist attack. But the threat is more personal than he could ever imagine. Back in a prison cell, his old nemesis Albazi is counting down the seconds to a revenge that will not just take Roy’s life, but erase his entire bloodline.
And as Roy and his wife Cleo prepare for a night of celebration at the Royal Courteney, they have no idea that they are stepping into a deadly trap.
As the relentless countdown nears zero, Roy must outsmart an invisible enemy and protect his loved ones before their time finally runs out . . .
23 million books sold.
Now a major ITV/BritBox show starring John Simm as Roy Grace.
Creator of Her Majesty Queen Camilla’s favourite fictional detective.
Mystery Police Procedural [ Pan Macmillan, On Sale: October 20, 2026, Hardcover / e-Book, ISBN: 9781037416422 / eISBN: 9781529090147 ]
Peter James has been a screenwriter and film producer, and is now the author of best selling crime novels. James has written 25 books, the most recent of which feature Brighton-based Detective Superintendent Roy Grace. His books have been translated into 29 languages. In England they are published by Pan Books and in the US by Carroll & Graf Publishers. James has written supernatural thrillers, spy fiction, Michael Crichton-style science-based thrillers, and a children's novel, as well as the introductions for Graham Masterton's collection 'Manitou Man' and Joe Rattigan's collection 'Ghosts Far From Subtle'. He also wrote, as 'a labour of love' the children's novelisation for the 1986 movie 'Biggles', which he also produced. James is a lifelong fan of the Biggles franchise, at one time owning the rights to the books, and having translated some foreign editions
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