Peter James

Ali Karim put a few questions to Peter James, whose latest novel in the award winning Detective Superintendent Roy Grace crime series – Dead Tomorrow – is just out in the UK. Part of the Q & A:

Were you bookish in your youth?

Yes, I was an avid reader – also an avid letter-writer to authors. I once wrote to Enid Blyton saying that I had just read Five Go To Treasure Island and I was very worried that the five of them had spent seven days on an island and not one of them had gone to the toilet in all that time. She wrote a nice letter back telling me not to worry, they had all gone several times but she didn’t think little boys and girls were interested, which was why she hadn’t put it in her book!

What books had you read in that period that perhaps led you to become a fiction writer yourself?

I really wanted to be a crime novelist when I began reading Sherlock Holmes at about twelve years old. Then one day in my mid-teens I read Graham Greene’s Brighton Rock and I was totally blown away by it – probably even more so because it was set in my home town. I promised myself that one day I would try to write a crime novel set in Brighton that was just half as good as this one.

What I love most about this timeless novel is that it...[read on]

Learn more about the author and his work at the official Peter James website and blog.

Peter James has worked as a screenwriter and a producer of numerous films, including the The Merchant Of Venice, starring Al Pacino, Jeremy Irons and Joseph Fiennes.

Dead Tomorrow is the latest of five novels in the the award winning Detective Superintendent Roy Grace crime series, which Judith Cutler calls "predictably deeply researched, elegantly written, fiendishly plotted and impossible to put down." The other titles are Dead Simple, Looking Good Dead, Not Dead Enough, and Dead Man's Footsteps.

The Page 69 Test: Looking Good Dead (the 2d in the DS Roy Grace series).

--Marshal Zeringue