Peter James

British author Peter James has won multiple awards, been both a New York Times and Sunday Times bestselling author with twenty-three million books worldwide, worked in film and theater, and had his Grace TV series recently renewed for a seventh season. However, his most unique honor is capturing the admiration of Her Majesty, Queen Camilla. The Queen, a devoted book lover, played a key role in the production of James’ latest Roy Grace novel, The Hawk is Dead. Not only did she request that he set the Detective Superintendent’s latest case in London, she also assisted James with access to staff members of the royal household and private tours of Buckingham Palace.

Q: I understand that Queen Camilla played a significant role in your writing the latest Roy Grace book, The Hawk is Dead. Can you describe how that came about?

Peter: Well, about ten years ago, a friend of mine emailed me, saying, “Whatever you’re doing,   stop doing it. Go out and buy a copy of today’s Daily Mail newspaper and turn to page three.” I went straight out and bought a copy. There was the then Duchess of Cornwall sitting in her office. And there were two Roy Grace books right behind her head, really prominent. It was an interview, and she said I was one of her two favorite authors. I wrote to her and said, “Thank you so much.” And she wrote me a handwritten letter back, quite promptly, and very chatty. For the next seven or eight years, I would send her a copy of each new Roy Grace novel, and she would always write back. One time she said, “It kept me occupied on my flight to Australia, and I don’t know what I’m going to do now. I haven’t got anything to read on the way back.” And then, she started the Duchess’s Reading Room at the beginning of COVID lockdown. It was on Instagram. She would take an author and feature that author for two weeks, doing something about them every day. She chose me as one of her kind of lead authors in the first season. She wanted to interview me herself. We decided it would be fun to do it on the set of the filming of Grace. We were filming “Dead Tomorrow” in the harbor. It was Season Two. We thought the harbor would be good because we could secure it quite easily. Royal visits are very prescribed. Her helicopter will land at 11 o’clock. At 11:10, her car will arrive at the waterfront. The Lord Lieutenant of Sussex and yourself will greet her. She will then go upstairs to a warehouse with you and interview you for thirty minutes. Then you will introduce her to the cast and crew. She will watch filming for ten minutes and then she’ll go back upstairs to the warehouse with just her private secretary to have her lunch. Then she’s off to the next appointment. So, she arrived, and it was quite bizarre. We were sitting on wooden chairs with literally a packing case between us. She honestly knows more about Roy Grace than I do. She was asking me questions, and I was quite surprised at the more bloodthirsty and gruesome scenes she was talking about. She was utterly charming. We finished the interview. Her team was around and her guards. I said, I’ll take you down to meet the crew. So, she met John Simm and all the cast—all the crew. Then she watched filming for ten minutes, and I said, “Okay, I’ll now let you be private.” She said, “No, no, come up and join me.” So, I went back upstairs in this warehouse with her and her lady-in-waiting. A lady-in-waiting produced a thermos flask and a banana from a handbag, which she gave to Camilla. And she then produced a ham sandwich, ham and cheese sandwich, which she gave to me. So, I just sat there having this picnic lunch with our future queen, chatting like old mates. It was magic.

Then a year later, she wrote to me and said, “When are you going to set a Roy Grace in London?” I thought, well, if it’s going to be London, Buckingham Palace would be a great place. So, I came up with a storyline. I ran it by a senior member of the royal household, and he said, “Well, I like it. I’ll run it by HMQ when she’s back from Kenya.”  And about a week later, he emailed me saying, “Well, I ran it by her. She laughed her head off. She loves it.”

Q:  What, if any, challenges did you meet in writing the book?

Peter: It was obviously a big research challenge, but I found really helpful people in the royal household who gave me a lot of information, and I had tours everywhere that is in the book, I went around before I wrote the book, and then again after I’d written the book. I learned so much stuff. I was fascinated by the India Room and the weapons.

Q: Did you find it difficult creating dialogue for King Charles and Queen Camilla?

Peter:  I was concerned, because I had taken it on my own to write various scenes with them, including the second chapter when they’re having breakfast. I did have some inside help from ladies in waiting and other members of the staff. And I asked the Queen herself about breakfast. She was very helpful to me on that. And then, I thought, these scenes in which Roy Grace is talking to the King and to Queen Camilla, I better make sure that she’s not going to be upset, because the last thing I want to do is get the book in print, and she throws a fit. So, we got a first draft of the book by the publishers specially bound. They put 001 on the front, and I wrote a note. I said, “You know, this is the very first copy of the first draft. Please have a look at it, and if there’s anything you don’t like or you want changed, now is the time to do it.” I met her a week later at Clarence House, and she said, “I absolutely loved it.”

Q: Did any member of the royal household have a problem with the way a certain fictional character was portrayed in the book?

Peter: I think because I’ve put the disclaimer at the start saying, although I’ve used titles, the characters themselves are fictitious. I met with the head of Palace Comms very recently, who had just read the book, and he wasn’t worried about it at all. He said, “It’s fiction. There’s some great stuff in there. I really enjoyed it.”

Q: Historically, were there ever any scandals of this type in the palace?

Peter: Well, it’s funny. I sent the storyline in, and a member of the royal household said, “You know, this actually happened.”

Q: Was there anything surprising that you discovered in your research?

Peter: What interested me was there’s quite a hotbed of gossip in the palace. People are sort of jealous of the footmen because of their fancy uniforms, whereas a lot of the sort of minor staff feel invisible because they’re not wearing smart uniforms. And there’s this whole system of long-service medals, and everyone is, which I’ve obviously made a point of in the book, desperate to get these medals. And they’re doing this huge renovation. They’ve been ripping up floorboards, and they’ve discovered some historically quite careless work. The late Queen’s sitting room was in the North Wing, and she had this long corridor. When I say long, I mean we’re talking about one hundred yards long. It is enormous. She used to walk down the corridor from her state bedrooms to her sitting room, which is a beautiful room with a bow window overlooking the grounds. They took up the floorboard last year to replace the heating pipes and everything underneath it. And they discovered that the planks along a part of this walkway had been partly cut through. If the queen had been angry and jumped up and down, she’d have done a Monty Python and gone straight through the floor.

Q: Considering the size of the palace, did you have any problem navigating?

Peter: I was talking to a member of the household, and I said, “How do you learn your way around?” He said, “I asked Prince Philip that question, and he said, ‘It’s very simple. You navigate by the paintings. You turn left at the Vermeer, and then you go straight on at the Canaletto.’”

Q: Was there any special privilege you were allowed during your research?

Peter: I really had fun driving a train. I actually learned to drive a train. I drove it from Brighton to London, and back again, which was an hour each way. It was eight carriages and had passengers. We arrived on time both ways, but it’s very much harder to drive than I ever realized to drive any train. That was a boyhood sort of dream come true. That was amazing.

Q: Who read the manuscript before you were ready to publish it?

Peter: I have my own kind of tight-knit team. I have my real-life boy Grace. He’s become one of my closest friends. We work very closely together. So, he reads every one hundred pages in terms of getting the police side of it accurate and how a detective would think and act. My wife also reads about every one hundred pages and tells me how people feel and react. She’s very, very hot on making sure that I show women as strong as men. And then, I had various members of the royal household whose departments I wrote about, like the India Room and the Armory. I got them to read it. I had about half a dozen members of the royal household read the book all the way through and told me little nuggets, like one of her companions, who in the book I call Shorty, was telling me about the kind of shoes that the Queen would wear. I had a lot of help from the people immediately around her. Even to the point of little details. One of Prince Charles’ kind of senior aides, who read the scenes with King Charles talking and interviewing Roy Grace in his office. I had, in the first draft I sent, the King standing up, putting both hands in pockets. And he said, “No, no, he would only ever put one hand in his pocket.” I love to get little details like that right.

Q: Isn’t there a sixth Season of the Grace TV series?

Peter: There is. They’re finished filming, and there’s going to be a Season 7 next year.

Q: That brings me to my last question. Is there another Roy Grace book in the works?

Peter: I’m actually almost finished at the moment. It’ll be out next year. I haven’t got a title yet for it. One of my favorite books, if I had a top ten books of all time, one of them would be Arthur Hailey’s Hotel. It was back in the sixties. It was like an old, faded grand hotel in New Orleans. So, I’ve set it, not a homage to him, but it’s sort of inspired. I’ve said it’s a Roy Grace set in an old, faded grand hotel in Brighton.

The Royal Train, transporting Her Majesty Queen Camilla, is derailed. Accident or attempted assassination? That is the start of Peter James’ new Roy Grace book, The Hawk is Dead, that takes the reader on a hard-to-put-down, page-turning journey with the Royal Family and Buckingham Palace at the core. Readers are not only given a puzzle to solve with twists and turns but also a look inside the private rooms of the world-famous palace with its priceless contents and a glimpse at the lifestyle of its residents. More than a mystery, the book provides intriguing information about the palace. Followers of Roy Grace will enjoy seeing their beloved Detective Superintendent applying his keen investigative expertise in a unique environment while new readers will have an intriguing introduction to Her Majesty’s favorite fictional detective.