I was in Lyons in France last weekend for the Crime Writing festival there, and was delighted to discover much of the crème of modern British crime writing (and therefore of the world!!!) also there. Some of the creme I met Mark Billingham (whose books I like a lot) for the first time. Everyone had…
I was immensely saddened to learn today of the tragic death of Bob Clark, the film director who gave me my first break as a producer, and a man who became a very close friend for many years back in the 1970s. Bob and I worked together on the late stages of Children Shouldn’t Play…
Many of you probably know that Ian Rankin beat me for the Crime Thriller of the Year Award at the Galaxy British Book Awards last night – no doubt exacting his revenge for my having beaten him last October in France for Le Prix Polar International! I have heard that the result last night was…
Today the voting opens for the Galaxy British Book Awards. This is like the Oscars of the British book publishing industry, but the voting is done by you, the readers. The winners of the Galaxy British Book Awards receive a Nibbie, an Oscar-like golden ornament shaped like a giant pen nib which could also double…
Recently I went to a drinks party at the Royal College of Pathology. Being pathologists, I’d kind of expected them to be in a damp, tiled basement lined with drain gulleys, serving Bloody Marys out of the chest cavities of opened-up cadavers, in soup ladles…. Instead to my surprise the organization occupies very spacious, swish…
Readers of this blog get the first sneak preview of the jacket for Not Dead Enough, the next Roy Grace novel due out in June. I’ve just been going back through the proofs one final time and I can’t wait for it to arrive on the shelves! It’s a pretty atmospheric cover, I think –…
We all have those moments when we really would like the ground to open up and disappear us whole! Well, I do, at any rate, with alarming frequency… My latest was earlier this month in Paris, where I had gone to receive my award, Le Prix Coeur Noir. I was staying at the Plaza Athénée…
A couple of blog mentions of winning Le Prix Coeur Noir – Macmillan CEO Richard Charkin chips in with Vive Le Anglais! while Mark Farley, of my favourite London bookstore, Waterstones in Notting Hill Gate, very kindly says Congrats Crime Master. If you’ve seen – or write! – a blog that’s mentioned me or my…
I’m absolutely thrilled to have won the French prize Le Prix Coeur Noir. Here’s some pics from the awards ceremony and the slighty cheeky press release! French beaten on home turf for major literary prize by plucky Brit Crime novelist Peter James wins prestigious Prix Coeur Noir British Author Peter James has been awarded the…
So, could you fall in love with a city where this ugly looking crustacean is the local and very seriously expensive, speciality? It’s called a Moreton Bay Bug. Although it doest actually taste a lot better than that other Melbourne speciality – flies… Morton Bay Bug You’ve all seen those comic Aussie hats with corks…