PICTURE YOU DEAD climbs the bestseller charts in first full week of sale, landing at Number 2

Peter James’s PICTURE YOU DEAD has flown to Number 2 in the Sunday Times paperback bestseller chart in its first full week of sale. Last week, it went straight to Number 3 after only three days on sale. Fans of Peter’s work – and of his brilliant hero Detective Superintendent Roy Grace – have raced to buy the eighteenth entry in the series, with thousands of positive reader reviews posted online.

‘There really is never a dull moment in this latest Roy Grace mystery thriller,’ writes CeeCee on GoodReads, ‘told at a brisk pace with plenty of plot twists and turns with an added amounts of mayhem, shenanigans, ruthlessness and sheer greed to keep your reading on.’

‘Although Picture you Dead is book eighteen in the series, the characters are so well written and described that it really doesn't matter if you start here. In fact, it's a great introduction,’ adds Val Wheeler, ‘the great thing is now I know I enjoyed it so much, I have another seventeen in the series and many others to catch up on.’

As well as the thrills of PICTURE YOU DEAD, Peter James fans can look forward to his upcoming events ‘An Evening with Peter James’ at the Ropetackle Centre in Sussex on 3rd June, and ‘The Sinister Everyday: The Fact And Fiction Of Crime Writing’ at the inaugural Queen’s Reading Room Festival at Hampton Court Palace on the 11th of June, as well as the ongoing stage tour of the gripping WISH YOU WERE DEAD adaptation.

In PICTURE YOU DEAD, Detective Superintendent Roy Grace finds himself plunged into an unfamiliar world of fine art – and art forgery. Outwardly the fine art scene appears respectable, refined, above reproach. But beneath the veneer, he rapidly finds that greed, deception and violence walk hand-in-hand.

Harry and Freya, an ordinary couple, dreamed for years of finding something priceless buried amongst the tat in a car boot sale. It was a dream they knew in their hearts would never come true – until the day it did… They buy a drab portrait for a few pounds, for its beautiful frame, planning to cut the painting out. Then studying it back at home there seems to be another picture beneath, of a stunning landscape. Could it be a long-lost masterpiece from 1770? If genuine, it could be worth millions. One collector is certain that the painting is genuine. Someone who will use any method he can to get what he wants and will stop at nothing.

And Harry and Freya are about to discover that their dream is turning into their worst nightmare…

Five more books in the bestselling Roy Grace series have been signed up by Pan Macmillan, including the nineteenth Roy Grace story, STOP THEM DEAD, which will be published in the UK on 28 September 2023 and in the US on 24 October 2023.

 About Peter James

Credit: James Clarke

Peter James is the international bestselling author of many award-winning novels, repeatedly occupying the Number One slot on the Sunday Times bestseller charts in both hardback and paperback. Peter writes both thriller standalones and the hugely popular Brighton-set Roy Grace series, now adapted for ITV.

Peter’s books have been translated into thirty-eight languages, with worldwide sales of over twenty-one million copies and his Detective Superintendent Roy Grace series, set in Brighton, has given him nineteen 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 James has also written two books based on true crime stories, with former senior detective Graham Bartlett.

Successful nationwide tours of the stage plays of THE PERFECT MURDER (2014), DEAD SIMPLE (2015,) NOT DEAD ENOUGH (2017), THE HOUSE ON COLD HILL (2019) and LOOKING GOOD DEAD (2022) have packed theatres in dozens of British cities, and garnered magnificent reviews. The stage play of WISH YOU WERE DEAD is currently touring the UK. Several other Peter James novels are optioned for film and in further development.

 Praise for PICTURE YOU DEAD

‘Whether your loved one is a fan of Grace (either in the book or TV show format), or just loves a good police procedural, PICTURE YOU DEAD won’t disappoint.’ – Darren Hardy, Amazon Editors’ Choice

‘The latest instalment in the Roy Grace series of mystery novels is also a personal favourite. James is a solid writer – character, action, and plot are perfectly balanced in this fantastic and gripping novel. If you haven’t read Peter James, make 2023 your resolution to start.’ – Andrew Gulli, The Strand Magazine, ‘Top 25 Mystery Novels of 2022’

Praise for Peter James

‘If you have never read Peter James’ crime thriller series about the Sussex detective Roy Grace, I would highly recommend you give it a try.’ – Queen Camilla, Press and Journal

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

‘Roy Grace ... is fast becoming one of the more memorable coppers in modern crime fiction ... A first class police procedural.’ – The Times

‘James just gets better and better and deserves the success he has achieved with this first-class series.’ – Independent on Sunday

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

‘Probably the closest we’ll get to a British Stephen King’ – The Financial Times

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

‘In uncertain times, I always tend to fall back on old, familiar favourites, so I’ll be reading Peter James’ Roy Grace series. They are thrillers with enough drama to keep you guessing. Reading a well-crafted mystery gives me a sense of accomplishment – almost as if I’ve solved everything myself!’ – Emma Shacklock, Books Editor, Women & Home Magazine

‘Peter James is one of the best crime writers in the business’ – Lee Child

‘A master plotter.’ – The Bookseller

‘James has been compared with Stephen King, but in many ways he's better’ – Daily Express

‘This compulsive horror story is a tale of the search for immortality . . . I cannot remember when I last read a novel I enjoyed so much’ – Sunday Telegraph

‘A thought-provoking menacer that’s completely technological and genuinely frightening about the power of future communications’ – Time Out

Visit Peter’s website.

Like him on Facebook and follow him on Twitter and Instagram.

Zakes Mda nominated for African Genius Awards

Photo credit: Sal Idriss

We are delighted that acclaimed author Zakes Mda has been nominated for the 2023 African Genius Awards.

The Awards were established in 2021 and are run by Priority Performance Projects, which is part of Plus 94 Research, a South African black-owned research company. They aim to honour exceptional Africans who espouse the values that will take the continent forward, with criteria including demonstrable contribution to problem solving, leadership and inspirational qualities, exceptional skills, outstanding contributions relevant to the community or society, and official recognition such as awards, honours and prestigious appointments.

The other nominees come from a wide range of fields and include Ameenah Gurib-Fakim (the first woman president of Mauritius), Oscar winning actress Lupita Amondi Nyong’o and Nobel Peace Prize winners Leymah Gbowee and Ouided Bouchamaoui. The full list can be found here. The three winners will be named on May 25, Africa Day, in a ceremony that will be streamed live from the University of Pretoria.

Zakes Mda’s latest novel, WAYFARER’S HYMNS was published by Umuzi in 2021 and was included in Brittle Paper’s ‘50 Notable African Books of 2021’ list.

Praise for Zakes Mda

‘A voice for which one should feel not only affection but admiration’ – The New York Times

‘Mda’s lyrical tale defies easy categorization and enters the realm of pure magic.’ – John Updike

‘Combines Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s magic realism and political astuteness with satire, social realism and a critical re-examination of the South African past.’ – The New York Times Book Review

‘Lyricism, vividness and dark, tragic wit have earned the author recognition here and in his homeland.’ – Publishers Weekly

‘The great South African novelist of his generation, a writer rich in both imagination and ironic political attitude.’ – The Philadelphia Inquirer

About Zakes Mda

Zakes Mda is the pen name of Zanemvula Kizito Gatyeni Mda. He is a South African, Lesotho and Appalachian American-African writer, painter, and music composer. He holds an MFA (Theatre) and an MA (Telecommunications) from Ohio University, and a PhD from the University of Cape Town. There have been recent successful exhibitions of his work in the US and South Africa and his paintings are bought by collectors around the world.

He has published more than twenty books, ten of which are novels and the rest collections of plays, poetry and a monograph on the theory and practice of theatre-for-development. His novel CION, set in southeast Ohio, was nominated for the NAACP Image Award. His memoir SOMETIMES THERE IS A VOID: MEMOIRS OF AN OUTSIDER was published by Farrar Straus and Giroux and was a New York Times Notable Book for 2012. He has won many prestigious literary awards in South Africa.

He divides his time between the USA and South Africa. He is Professor Emeritus of English at Ohio University, lecturer in Creative Writing at Johns Hopkins University and Extraordinary Professor of English at the University of the Western Cape. In South Africa he is a patron of the Market Theatre and director of the Southern African Multimedia AIDS Trust. He also runs a beekeeping project he established in 2000 with rural women of the Eastern Cape and is a director of NeoZane, a publishing house and animation film production company in Johannesburg.

Follow Zakes on Twitter.

Another bestseller for Peter James’ Roy Grace series with PICTURE YOU DEAD

PICTURE YOU DEAD – the 18th instalment of Peter James’ barnstorming Roy Grace series – has leaped to Number Three in the Paperback Fiction chart, and Number Four in the overall UK Bestsellers list, after only three days on sale.

 The Roy Grace series has continued to go from strength to strength in 2023, with the latest bestseller adding to the plaudits received for the third-year showing of the hugely successful ITV adaptation and the latest touring stage show, bringing WISH YOU WERE DEAD to audiences around the country.

 The GRACE momentum continues with a fourth season of the ITV show due on screens in 2024 and with all the episodes to date streaming on BritBox in many countries across the world. The WISH YOU WERE DEAD theatre production continues to tour the UK with further dates in Salford, Dartford, Southampton, Malvern, Birmingham, Sheffield, Southend, Worthing, Leicester and Woking.

 In PICTURE YOU DEAD, Detective Superintendent Roy Grace finds himself plunged into an unfamiliar world of fine art – and art forgery. Outwardly the fine art scene appears respectable, refined, above reproach. But beneath the veneer, he rapidly finds that greed, deception and violence walk hand-in-hand.

 Harry and Freya, an ordinary couple, dreamed for years of finding something priceless buried amongst the tat in a car boot sale. It was a dream they knew in their hearts would never come true – until the day it did… They buy a drab portrait for a few pounds, for its beautiful frame, planning to cut the painting out. Then studying it back at home there seems to be another picture beneath, of a stunning landscape. Could it be a long-lost masterpiece from 1770? If genuine, it could be worth millions. One collector is certain that the painting is genuine. Someone who will use any method he can to get what he wants and will stop at nothing.

 And Harry and Freya are about to discover that their dream is turning into their worst nightmare…

 Peter will be out to meet fans and sign more books again soon, with two headline events planned: ‘An Evening with Peter James’ at the Ropetackle Centre in Sussex on 3rd June, and ‘The Sinister Everyday: The Fact And Fiction Of Crime Writing’ at the inaugural Queen’s Reading Room Festival at Hampton Court Palace on the 11th of June.

 Five more books in the bestselling Roy Grace series have been signed up by Pan Macmillan, including the nineteenth Roy Grace story, STOP THEM DEAD, which will be published in the UK on 28 September 2023 and in the US on 24 October 2023.

 About Peter James

Credit: James Clarke

 Peter James is the international bestselling author of many award-winning novels, repeatedly occupying the Number One slot on the Sunday Times bestseller charts in both hardback and paperback. Peter writes both thriller standalones and the hugely popular Brighton-set Roy Grace series, now adapted for ITV.

 Peter’s books have been translated into thirty-eight languages, with worldwide sales of over twenty-one million copies and his Detective Superintendent Roy Grace series, set in Brighton, has given him 18 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 James has also written two books based on true crime stories, with former senior detective Graham Bartlett.

  Successful nationwide tours of the stage plays of THE PERFECT MURDER (2014), DEAD SIMPLE (2015,) NOT DEAD ENOUGH (2017), THE HOUSE ON COLD HILL (2019) and LOOKING GOOD DEAD (2022) have packed theatres in dozens of British cities, and garnered magnificent reviews. The stage play of WISH YOU WERE DEAD is currently touring the UK. Several other Peter James novels are optioned for film and in further development.

 Praise for PICTURE YOU DEAD

 ‘Whether your loved one is a fan of Grace (either in the book or TV show format), or just loves a good police procedural, PICTURE YOU DEAD won’t disappoint.’ – Darren Hardy, Amazon Editors’ Choice

 ‘The latest instalment in the Roy Grace series of mystery novels is also a personal favourite. James is a solid writer – character, action, and plot are perfectly balanced in this fantastic and gripping novel. If you haven’t read Peter James, make 2023 your resolution to start.’ – Andrew Gulli, The Strand Magazine, ‘Top 25 Mystery Novels of 2022’

 Praise for Peter James

 ‘If you have never read Peter James’ crime thriller series about the Sussex detective Roy Grace, I would highly recommend you give it a try.’ – Queen Camilla, Press and Journal

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

 ‘Roy Grace ... is fast becoming one of the more memorable coppers in modern crime fiction ... A first class police procedural.’ – The Times

 ‘James just gets better and better and deserves the success he has achieved with this first-class series.’ – Independent on Sunday

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

 ‘Probably the closest we’ll get to a British Stephen King’ – The Financial Times

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

 ‘In uncertain times, I always tend to fall back on old, familiar favourites, so I’ll be reading Peter James’ Roy Grace series. They are thrillers with enough drama to keep you guessing. Reading a well-crafted mystery gives me a sense of accomplishment – almost as if I’ve solved everything myself!’ – Emma Shacklock, Books Editor, Women & Home Magazine

 ‘Peter James is one of the best crime writers in the business’ – Lee Child

‘A master plotter.’ – The Bookseller

 ‘James has been compared with Stephen King, but in many ways he's better’ – Daily Express

 ‘This compulsive horror story is a tale of the search for immortality . . . I cannot remember when I last read a novel I enjoyed so much’ – Sunday Telegraph

 ‘A thought-provoking menacer that’s completely technological and genuinely frightening about the power of future communications’ – Time Out

 Visit Peter’s website.

 Like him on Facebook and follow him on Twitter and Instagram.

‘Lech, Prince, and the Nice Things’ by Rue Baldry wins Canada and Europe category in the 2023 Commonwealth Short Story Prize

Photo credit: Rachel Gladwin

Rue Baldry’s short story ‘Lech, Prince, and the Nice Things’ has won the Canada and Europe regional category in the 2023 Commonwealth Short Story Prize.

The Commonwealth Short Story Prize is awarded annually for the best piece of unpublished short fiction from any of the Commonwealth’s 56 Member States, with regional winners each receiving £2,500 in prize money as well as publication in Granta Magazine, while the overall winner wins £5,000. This year there were a total of 6,642 entries from 56 Commonwealth countries, with 28 writers from 19 different Commonwealth countries making the final shortlists.

The overall winner is selected from the list of regional winners, and will be revealed on the 27th June 2023.  The other 2023 category winners are: ‘The Undertaker's Apprentice’ by Hana Gammon (Africa), ‘Oceans Away from my Homeland’ by Agnes Chew (Asian),‘Ocoee’ by Kwame McPherson (Caribbean), and ‘Kilinochchi’ by Himali McInnes (Pacific).

Rue’s story, ‘Lech, Prince, and the Nice Things’ is the story of a young plasterer working on a basement conversion who is lured to the upper floors of the building, where he finds the ‘nice things’ of the title, and commits acts of petty revenge on them.

The story began, Baldry says, during the spring of 2020, during the first UK pandemic lockdown and the Black Lives Matter protests. She says, ‘The neighbours on both sides of our terraced house were having major building work done. Unable to write, I started to think about the experiences of workers in the building trade, and other working-class jobs, who were being disproportionately exposed to the virus. At the same time I was reading a lot of posts about the subtle (as well as blatant) racisms experienced by People of Colour in the UK, which reminded me of experiences of friends.’

Katrina Best, the judge representing the Canada and Europe region, said that ‘Lech, Prince, and the Nice Things’ is ‘a genuinely surprising and unexpectedly moving story that explores such weighty – and timely – topics as racism, classism and inequality in modern-day Britain, yet is never heavy-handed thanks to the writer’s comedic sensibility and talent for observing the minutiae of everyday life. The writer’s considerable skill is evident in every element of this story, including deft observations, evocative descriptions, fully realised, complex and sympathetic characters, believable dialogue, and an expertly crafted narrative that is infused throughout with wry humour.’

On the judging process, chair of the judges Bilal Tanweer said that ‘it was both an agony and a pleasure to choose the overall winner from each region. All of the winning stories demonstrated impressive ambition and deep love for storytelling, combined with an intimate understanding of place and a real mastery of the craft. The judges were unanimous in their admiration of these stories and how they sought to tackle difficult metaphysical and historical questions.’

Rue’s debut novel, DWELL, is a moving coming-of-age and LGBT+  story, exploring themes of trauma, healing and belonging in the aftermath of World War One.

About Rue Baldry

Rue Baldry writes fiction and lives in York. In 2015, she was mentored by Ross Raisin as a Jerwood/ Arvon mentee. In 2017, she was the Bridge Awards/ Moniack Mhor Emerging Writer. Rue has come second in the Yeovil Prize, been shortlisted for the Flash 500 competition and longlisted for the Caledonian, Bridport, First Page and Women’s Prize Discoveries prizes. Twenty-four of her short stories have been published in journals including Ambit, Fairlight Shorts, Mslexia, Crossways, Litro, MIR Online, Postbox, The Incubator, The First Line and The Honest Ulsterman, and shortlisted in the Reader Berlin and Odd Voice Out competitions.

Visit Rue’s website

Follow Rue on Twitter and Instagram

Alan Parks shortlisted for the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger at the CWA Daggers 2023

Credit: CWA

Congratulations to Alan Parks, whose novel MAY GOD FORGIVE has been shortlisted for the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger at the Crime Writers’ Association annual Daggers Awards! The Steel Dagger recognises the best espionage, psychological, or adventure thriller of the year, and sees Alan nominated alongside Linwood Barclay, John Brownlow, M. W. Craven, Robert Galbraith and Ava Glass. The winner will be picked by a jury chaired by Corinne Turner, the managing director of Ian Fleming Publications Ltd, and announced at the CWA’s gala dinner on 6 July.

The Crime Writers’ Association is this year celebrating its 70th anniversary, and the Daggers are the oldest awards of the genre and among the most prestigious.

MAY GOD FORGIVE is the fifth title in Alan Parks’ highly acclaimed Harry McCoy series. It won the McIlvanney Scottish Crime Book of the Year award and was recently longlisted for the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year (for which voting is still open to the public until this Thursday, 18 May).

After a fatal arson attack leaves tempers frayed in Glasgow, McCoy finds himself in a race against time to find the suspects before they turn up dead one by one. In 2022 MAY GOD FORGIVE was published in the UK by Canongate and in the US by Europa. The series is sold in more than ten countries around the world and the paperback was published in the UK last month. The next book in the series, TO DIE IN JUNE, will be released in the UK on 25 May.

Praise for MAY GOD FORGIVE

‘MAY GOD FORGIVE is the fifth instalment in a remarkable series that began with BLOODY JANUARY. The novels, as someone once said, can be read in any order; the important thing is to read them all.’ – Mark Sanderson, The Times

‘MAY GOD FORGIVE is a bleak and violent book, full of grisly details not for the squeamish, but also tenderness, poignance and hard-earned wisdom.’ – Tom Nolan, The Wall Street Journal

‘Noir has long been the dominant colour in the palette of such Scottish writers as Ian Rankin and Denise Mina, but Parks manages to find a deeper shade of black, only slightly attenuated by Harry's willingness to go far off the grid to extract a wee bit of justice. A must for those who take their noir straight, no chaser; others should keep the Pepto handy.’ – Bill Ott, Booklist

‘Enjoyably readable… Parks is a gifted story-teller’ – Allan Massie, The Scotsman

‘Harry McCoy is the brightest dark star on the Tartan Noir scene for some time and in future critics of Scottish crime fiction will surely be referring to the triumvirate of Laidlaw, Rebus and McCoy … MAY GOD FORGIVE is crime fiction which pulls no punches, powerfully told and, at times, heartbreakingly poignant. One of the crime novels of 2022.’ – Mike Ripley, Getting Away With Murder

About Alan Parks

Credit: Euan Robertson

Alan Parks worked in the music industry for over twenty years before turning to crime writing.

His debut BLOODY JANUARY was shortlisted for the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière, FEBRUARY’S SON was nominated for an Edgar Award, BOBBY MARCH WILL LIVE FOREVER won the Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original, the Prix Mystère de la critique in the foreign fiction category, and was shortlisted for the Macavity Award for Best Mystery Novel and THE APRIL DEAD was shortlisted for the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Book of the Year. The latest Harry McCoy book, MAY GOD FORGIVE, was published in April 2022 and won the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Book of the Year 2022. It has also been shortlisted for the 2023 CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award and longlisted for the 2023 Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award . The Harry McCoy series is optioned for television.

Alan was born in Scotland and attended The University of Glasgow where he was awarded a M.A. in Moral Philosophy. He still lives and works in the city as well as spending time in London.

Visit Alan’s website

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