PETER JAMES’ FIND THEM DEAD FLIES STRAIGHT TO NUMBER ONE ON THE PAPERBACK BESTSELLER LISTS

Peter James’ sixteenth Detective Superintendent Roy Grace novel, FIND THEM DEAD, has shot straight to the Number 1 spot in the Sunday Times paperback bestseller chart after only three days on sale. FIND THEM DEAD’s success gave James his seventeenth Number 1 on the British charts this Sunday. FIND THEM DEAD has also been included in the Waterstones Best Paperbacks of 2020 and last month, James’ nerve-shredding standalone thriller, I FOLLOW YOU, spent weeks in the Top Ten of the hardback bestseller lists.

In FIND THEM DEAD, Roy Grace gets a tip-off about a county lines drugs mastermind operating out of Brighton. On his first day back in his old job in Sussex, he is called to a seemingly senseless murder.

Separately, Meg Magellan finally has her life back together, five years after the car crash that killed her husband and their son. Her daughter, Laura, now 18, is on her gap year travelling in South America with a friend, and Meg misses her badly. Laura is all she has in the world. In between jobs, Meg receives a summons for jury service. She’s excited – it might be interesting and will help distract her from constantly worrying about Laura. But when she is selected for the trial of a major Brighton drugs overlord, everything changes.

Gradually, Grace’s investigation draws him increasingly into the sinister sphere of influence of the drug dealer on trial. A man utterly ruthless and evil, prepared to order the death of anyone it takes to enable him to walk free. Just a few days into jury service, Meg arrives home to find a photograph of Laura, in Ecuador, lying on her kitchen table. Then her phone rings.

A sinister, threatening stranger is on the line. He tells her that if she ever wants to see Laura alive again, it is very simple. At the end of the trial, all she has to do is make sure the jury says just two words… Not guilty.

Peter James’ Roy Grace series has been translated into thirty-seven languages with worldwide sales of over twenty million copies

The first two Roy Grace novels, DEAD SIMPLE and LOOKING GOOD DEAD have been adapted for ITV by screenwriter and Endeavour creator, Russell Lewis, with John Simm set to star as the tenacious detective. DEAD SIMPLE filming is complete, with production on LOOKING GOOD DEAD ongoing.

Read Peter James’ 'Author's Tale' interview with the Independent.

Listen to Peter James’ interviews with the Mail Arts+ and Writer's Routine podcasts.

Praise for Peter James:

‘Sinister and riveting… Peter James is one of the best British crime writers, and therefore one of the best in the world.’ — Lee Child

‘Peter James creates a world we can smell, touch and feel for his Brighton detective Inspector Roy Grace.’ – The Times

‘A master plotter who cunningly tunes into contemporary concerns. Peter James cannot fail to thrill.’ ­– Daily Mail

'Peter James is one of the best crime writers in the business.' — Karin Slaughter

About the Author:

Peter James is an international bestselling crime and thriller writer. In 2015 WHSmith 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.

Successful nationwide tours of the stage plays of THE PERFECT MURDER (2014), DEAD SIMPLE (2015), NOT DEAD ENOUGH (2017) and THE HOUSE ON COLD HILL (2019) have played to packed theatres in dozens of British cities, and garnered magnificent reviews. The newest Roy Grace theatre production, LOOKING GOOD DEAD, will tour in 2021.

Visit Peter’s website

Like him on Facebook and follow him on Twitter

ABSOLUTE PROOF BY PETER JAMES HITS NUMBER 3 ON THE PAPERBACK BESTSELLER CHARTS

Peter James’ explosive international thriller ABSOLUTE PROOF has shot to Number 3 in the Sunday Times paperback bestseller chart, as featured this coming weekend. A Number 1 bestseller in hardback earlier this year, ABSOLUTE PROOF was published in paperback by Pan Macmillan on 25 July.

ABSOLUTE PROOF was shortlisted for the National Book Award for Audiobook of the Year in 2018 and was selected for the Richard & Judy Summer Book Club 2019.  Judy Finnigan described ABSOLUTE PROOF as ‘Thought-provoking, thrilling, funny and challenging…Peter James’s most ambitious novel yet.’

In ABSOLUTE PROOF, investigative reporter Ross Hunter receives a phone call that will change his life – and possibly the world – for ever.

‘I’d just like to assure you I’m not a nutcase, Mr Hunter. My name is Dr Harry F. Cook. I know this is going to sound strange, but I’ve recently been given absolute proof of God’s existence – and I’ve been advised there is a writer, a respected journalist called Ross Hunter, who could help me to get taken seriously.’

What would it take to prove the existence of God? And what would be the consequences?

The false faith of a billionaire evangelist, the life’s work of a famous atheist, and the credibility of each of the world’s major religions are all under threat. If Ross Hunter can survive long enough to present the evidence . . .

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 fourteen 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.

Peter’s standalone titles include THE PERFECT MURDER, which has been turned into a smash hit stage play and his chilling ghost story THE HOUSE ON COLD HILL, which had its stage tour in 2019, with the sequel, THE SECRET OF COLD HILL, to be published in October 2019.

Praise for Peter James:

‘Sinister and riveting… Peter James is one of the best British crime writers, and therefore one of the best in the world.’ — Lee Child

‘Peter James, Britain’s closest equivalent to Stephen King’ — Sunday Times

'Peter James is one of the best crime writers in the business.' — Karin Slaughter

‘In my thirty-four years of policing, never have I come across a writer who so accurately depicts “The Job“’ —Detective Investigator Pat Lanigan, Office of the District Attorney, NYPD

Follow Peter James on Twitter.

Visit Peter James’ website.

ROY GRACE TAKES THE BESTSELLER LISTS BY STORM: DEAD IF YOU DON’T REACHES NUMBER ONE

Internationally acclaimed author Peter James has his thirteenth consecutive number one as the latest novel in his riveting Roy Grace series, DEAD IF YOU DON’T, shot to the top of the bestseller lists in its first week of sales. DEAD IF YOU DON’T was published in hardback and ebook by Pan Macmillan on 17 May. The launch was held at the Amex Brighton and Hove Football stadium, a fitting location, as the novel begins right there… In Heat magazine, Isabelle Broom praised DEAD IF YOU DON’T as ‘a galloping riot of entertainment and action’ and it grips from the very first pages.

Kipp Brown, successful businessman and compulsive gambler, is having the worst run of luck of his life. He’s beginning to lose, big style. However, taking his teenage son, Mungo, to their club’s Saturday afternoon football match should have given him a welcome respite, if only for a few hours. But it’s at the stadium where his nightmare begins. Within minutes of arriving at the game, Kipp bumps into a client. He takes his eye off Mungo for a few moments, and in that time, the boy disappears. Then he gets the terrifying message that someone has his child, and to get him back alive, Kipp will have to pay.

Defying instructions not to contact the police, Kipp reluctantly does just that, and Detective Superintendent Roy Grace is brought in to investigate. At first it seems a straightforward case of kidnap. But rapidly Grace finds himself entering a dark, criminal underbelly of the city, where the rules are different and nothing is what it seems . . .

Peter was a guest on various radios shows in the run up to the publication of DEAD IF YOU DON’T and appeared on London Live TV’s arts news programme to discuss his new novel and his time out with the Met. He was a featured author for this year’s Crimefest and visited Waterstones on Jersey’s Queen Street to talk about DEAD IF YOU DON’T in conversation with BBC presenter Cathy Le Feuvre. He’ll be appearing at the Jersey Festival in September, among other festivals in the year ahead. Visit The Bookseller’s Pictures of the Week to see Peter hosting booksellers in Brighton ahead of the DEAD IF YOU DON’T launch.

DEAD IF YOU DON’T has already been snapped up in Russia by Eksmo and Minerva in Finland. Rights to Peter’s riveting thriller ABSOLUTE PROOF, in which a mysterious phone call pulls an investigative journalist into the search to find proof of God’s existence, have also been bought by international publishers. ABSOLUTE PROOF is set to be published by Macmillan in October, with a major campaign. Fans of Peter James can look forward to more compelling Roy Grace cases as Pan Macmillan have also acquired rights for three further titles.

Peter James is one of the UK’s most treasured crime and thriller novelists. He has won numerous awards for his gripping crime novels, including the coveted 2016 CWA Diamond Dagger for sustained excellence, and an Honorary Platinum Award at the Specsavers Bestseller Awards, powered by Nielsen Book.  He was publicly voted by WH Smith – Britain's biggest book selling chain – The Best Crime Author of All Time. The Roy Grace detective novels have sold over 19 million copies worldwide and are now published in 37 territories. His last Roy Grace NEED YOU DEAD went straight in at No. 1 in the paperback bestseller charts in October 2017 and stayed in the top 10 for nine weeks. Many of his books have also been adapted for the stage, with his standalone chiller THE HOUSE ON COLD HILL up next in 2019 – see more and book here!

Visit Peter’s website

Follow Peter on Twitter

Subscribe to Peter’s Youtube channel

Praise for DEAD IF YOU DON’T:

‘Chief superintendent Roy Grace is back – and we think this could be his most exciting storyline yet…a galloping riot of entertainment and action, with heaps of dark humour thrown in.’ — Isabelle Broom, Heat

‘As ever, James may be dealing with familiar material, but always manages to render it afresh, his narrative (here involving the kidnapped son of a successful businessman) is made tauter by the adroit characterisation of the principal participants.’ — Barry Forshaw, Crime Time

‘I love the Roy Grace series of books and have read every single one of them…I loved the storyline…It’s absolutely wonderful to have Roy Grace back and is like welcoming back an old friend! …it is fantastic when the action is forefront as it is so cleverly written.  The plot was well researched and well described and it was nail-bitingly filled with suspense and tension! I completely and utterly loved it.  It is Roy Grace and, of course, Peter James at his best.  It had me hooked from page one to the very end.  Highly, highly recommended!  Roll on Roy for book number 15!’ — Stardust Book Reviews

HELEN WALMSLEY JOHNSON’S POWERFUL MEMOIR, LOOK WHAT YOU MADE ME DO, OUT TODAY

Helen Walmsley Johnson’s brave and unflinching memoir on coercive control, LOOK WHAT YOU MADE ME DO, is published today by Macmillan in hardback and ebook. Helen’s frank account of life in an abusive relationship is a valuable read that opens up an important conversation about what coercive control is, and the fight to overcome it.

For more than two years, BBC Radio 4’s The Archers ran a disturbing storyline centred on Helen Tichener’s abuse at the hands of her husband Rob. Not the kind of abuse that leaves a bruise, but the sort of coercive control that breaks your spirit and makes it almost impossible to walk away. As she listened to the unfolding story, Helen Walmsley-Johnson was forced to confront her own agonising past.

Helen’s first husband controlled her life, from the people she saw to what was in her bank account. He alienated her from friends and family and even from their three daughters. Eventually, he threw her out and she painfully began to rebuild her life. Then, divorced and in her early forties, she met Franc. Kind, charming, considerate Franc. For ten years she would be in his thrall, even when he too was telling her what to wear, what to eat, even what to think.

LOOK WHAT YOU MADE ME DO is Helen’s candid and utterly gripping memoir of how she was trapped by a smiling abuser, not once but twice. It is a vital guide to recognising, understanding and surviving this sinister form of abuse and its often terrible legacy. It is also an inspirational account of how one woman found the courage to walk away.

You can read extracts from LOOK WHAT YOU MADE ME DO in both YOU magazine, and The Times Magazine. Yesterday, Helen appeared on the Victoria Derbyshire show, talking openly about the abuse she endured in her past relationships. She will be attending the Southbank Centre’s Women of the World festival tomorrow, joining a panel to discuss the how shame is used to control women. In June, she will be speaking at the Stoke Newington Literary Festival.

Helen Walmsley-Johnson was the author of the Guardian’s popular ‘The Vintage Years’ column, on older women and style. She worked for the Daily Telegraph, before joining the Guardian as Alan Rusbridger’s PA for seven years. Her book about middle-age, THE INVISIBLE WOMAN, was published to great acclaim in 2015. She lives in Rutland.

Follow Helen on Twitter

Praise for LOOK WHAT YOU MADE ME DO:

‘A brave and gripping book…Her book, part-memoir, part self-help unpicks exactly what happened to her, demonstrating just how blithely easy it is to succumb to this form of domestic abuse, but critically it’s also about how to recognise it, survive it, and rebuild your life in the aftermath.’ — The Bookseller

‘Walmsley-Johnson has succeeded in her fundamental aim: to offer a valuable map of coercive abuse. She has also written a warming, subtle and realistic narrative of recovery.’ — Terri Apter, The Times Literary Supplement

Praise for THE INVISIBLE WOMEN:

‘THE INVISIBLE WOMAN always speaks to me, and for me. It's about saying up yours to the cult of youth, but also about seeing the life of the 50 + as hilariously funny (not unlike the life of the 15-year-old, when you come to think about it).’ — Professor Mary Beard

‘THE INVISIBLE WOMAN remains a warm, companionable book with a tart aftertaste. Above all – and this is perhaps not quite its intention – it is a reminder to all of us, man, woman, young or getting on a bit, that, no matter how solid our lives seem, we are all of us one bad decision or single piece of rotten luck away from losing everything. And for that we should be both grateful and prepared.’ — Kathryn Hughes, Guardian

‘I imagined this book as a witty riposte to ageing, and in some ways it is. But it’s much more than that. It’s full of serious insights. The author, approaching 60 at the time of writing, tells us about ageing and about how it seems to have changed in her lifetime. She makes the point that, years ago, retirement was “a reward” but now it “could be seen as the punishment”. She is excellent, too, on midlife crises, the death of parents, memory, and how to deal with the passing of time.' — Evening Standard

NEED YOU DEAD reaches #1 in Paperback as Peter James is awarded the first Rheinbach Glass Dagger Award

Peter James’ latest novel in the gripping Roy Grace series, NEED YOU DEAD, has reached #1 in The Sunday Times paperback fiction chart this week, after topping the ebook bestseller chart in June. NEED YOU DEAD which Publishers Weekly praised as a ‘skilful twister’, is the 13th novel in the bestselling series, published in the UK by Macmillan earlier this month.

In NEED YOU DEAD, Lorna Belling, desperate to escape the marriage from hell, falls for the charms of another man who promises her the earth. But, as Lorna finds, life seldom follows the plans you’ve made. A chance photograph on a client’s mobile phone changes everything for her.

When the body of a woman is found in a bath in Brighton, Detective Superintendent Roy Grace is called to the scene. At first, it looks an open-and-shut case with a clear prime suspect. Then other scenarios begin to present themselves, each of them tantalizingly plausible, until, in a sudden turn of events, and to his utter disbelief, the case turns more sinister than Grace could ever have imagined.

The Roy Grace series has been translated into 37 languages, with 19 million copies of Peter James’ books sold worldwide. Peter recently travelled to Germany, where he was awarded the first Rheinbach Glass Dagger Award for Crime Fiction in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the crime writing genre. In Germany, Peter’s novels are published by Fischer Scherz.

To see more pictures from the event, you can follow Peter's Instagram.

See much, much more on Peter’s website.

Check out the array of excellent crime writer interviews and information on Peter James TV.

Follow Peter on Facebook, and  Twitter. 

 Praise for Roy Grace:

‘James’s superior 13th novel … This skilful twister shows why James was awarded the 2016 CWA Diamond Dagger.’ — Publishers Weekly Starred Review

‘Sinister and riveting… Peter James is one of the best British crime writers, and therefore one of the best in the world.’ – Lee Child

‘Peter James is one of the best crime writers in the business’ – Karin Slaughter

‘Peter James is one of the most fiendishly clever crime fiction plotters’ – The Daily Mail