The first instalment of brand-new ITV crime drama, GRACE, based on international bestselling author Peter James’ Detective Superintendent Roy Grace series, will air on Sunday 14th March at 8pm. The series is written by acclaimed screenwriter and Endeavour creator, Russell Lewis, and co-produced by Second Act Productions, Tall Story Pictures and Vaudeville Productions.
Starring acclaimed actor John Simm as tenacious detective Roy Grace, Richie Campbell as Glenn Branson and Rakie Ayola as Alison Vosper, the two-hour film based on the first book in the series, DEAD SIMPLE, will introduce the audience to Brighton-based Detective Superintendent Roy Grace, a hard-working police officer who has dedicated his life to the job, but finds his career under threat.
Watch the trailer and see the full cast list for GRACE here.
There’s widespread excitement among fans about Roy Grace’s imminent television appearance and GRACE has been included in many ‘2021 One to Watch’ lists, including The Mirror, The Telegraph, The Sunday Express, Radio Times, BBC and The Sunday Times.
Sunday’s programme based on Peter James’s first Roy Grace bestseller DEAD SIMPLE, opens with Grace running enquiries into long forgotten cold cases with little or no prospect of success. He’s obsessed with the disappearance of his beloved wife, Sandy, which haunts his thoughts and his unorthodox police methods have come under scrutiny once again. Grace is walking a career tightrope and risks being moved from the job he loves most.
With so much at stake, his colleague Detective Sergeant Glenn Branson knows he has more to give and asks him for help with a case. When a stag night prank appears to go wrong and the groom goes missing, Branson calls upon Grace to unravel events that led to the mysterious disappearance three days before his wedding to his beautiful fiancé.
There is no trace of the missing groom, a successful property developer with everything to live for. Is this a case of stag night shenanigans gone badly awry? Or is this something more sinister? With nothing but instinct, a lingering suspicion and his obsessive nature, Grace doggedly pursues the groom’s disappearance and becomes uneasily close to the bride to be…
GRACE was filmed on location in Brighton in 2020 with executive producers Andrew O’Connor and Paul Sandler for Second Act Productions, Patrick Schweitzer for Tall Story Pictures, Michael Vine for Vaudeville Productions, and Russell Lewis and Peter James. The first film, Dead Simple, is directed by John Alexander with the second film, Looking Good Dead (based on the second book in the series of the same name), directed by Julia Ford, airing on ITV later this year.
The seventeenth instalment in the Roy Grace book series, LEFT YOU DEAD, is published in the UK by Pan Macmillan on 13th May 2021. Peter James has also written a Roy Grace novella, WISH YOU WERE DEAD, for The Reading Agency’s QuickReads scheme, published on 27th May 2021. The paperback of the standalone thriller I FOLLOW YOU will be out on 24 June 2021.
About Peter James
Peter James is the international bestselling author of many award-winning novels. His Detective Superintendent Roy Grace series, set in Brighton – translated into thirty-seven languages with worldwide sales of over twenty million copies – has given him seventeen consecutive Sunday Times Number Ones. In 2015 WH Smith customers voted him the Greatest Crime Author of All Time and in 2016 he was awarded the coveted CWA Diamond Dagger, a lifetime achievement award for sustained excellence. In 2018 he received a Specsavers Honorary Platinum Bestseller Award.
In addition to his career as a novelist, he has produced several films, including The Merchant of Venice, starring Al Pacino, Jeremy Irons and Joseph Fiennes. He also co-created the hit Channel 4 series Bedsitcom, which was nominated for a Rose d'Or.
Successful nationwide tours of the stage plays of THE PERFECT MURDER (2014) and DEAD SIMPLE (2015) have packed theatres in dozens of British cities, and garnered magnificent reviews and NOT DEAD ENOUGH opened to full houses and acclaim in 2017. January 2019 saw the opening of the stage tour of THE HOUSE ON COLD HILL, with the sequel THE SECRET OF COLD HILL published in October 2019. The stage play of LOOKING GOOD DEAD will tour the UK later in 2021, starring award-winning actor and EastEnders icon, Adam Woodyatt.
Praise for Peter James
‘Superior plotting and edge-of-the-seat suspense.’ – The Guardian
‘Peter James is one of the best crime writers in the business’ – Karin Slaughter
‘A master plotter who cunningly tunes into contemporary concerns. Peter James cannot fail to thrill.’ – Daily Mail
‘Peter James creates a world we can smell, touch and feel for his Brighton detective Inspector Roy Grace.’ – The Times
‘Probably the closest we’ll get to a British Stephen King’ – The Financial Times
‘With echoes of Thomas Harris, the closer analogue is to Jeffrey Deaver’s clock-racing thrillers. … James delivers the goods.’ — Kirkus Reviews
‘James just gets better and better and deserves the success he has achieved with this first-class series.’ — Independent on Sunday
