Peter James

Peter James is a British crime novelist, born in Brighton in 1948, the city where most of his books are set. He studied film, then worked as a screenwriter and producer in North America during the 1970s before turning to fiction with supernatural and science-based thrillers such as “Possession” (1988) and “Host” (1993). In 2005 he began the Roy Grace series with “Dead Simple”, following a Brighton detective superintendent; the series now runs to more than twenty novels and was adapted by ITV as “Grace” from 2021. He also writes standalone thrillers, among them “Perfect People” (2011), “The House on Cold Hill” (2015) and “Absolute Proof” (2018). A two-time chair of the Crime Writers’ Association, he was appointed OBE in 2026 for services to literature and to charity.