Just had a great launch party for Looking Good Dead at Borders in Churchill Square, Brighton on Wednesday, June 7th, with nearly two hundred people attending. I was particularly honoured to have my dear and very close friend, writer James Herbert, come along, as well as several other writer mates, including Vicky Sinha, wife of Indra Sinha, Mitch Symons (who among many achievements compiled the original set of questions for the pilot of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire), Fiona Cane, who’s wonderful debut novel, Killing Fame, has just been published and Russell Ash (The Top Ten Of Everything) who sent me the picture of his lovely and highly talented wife Caroline reading the book the next day. He tells me nude reading is quite the thing in Lewes…
Looking Good Alive!
It was also fabulous to have the entire staff of Brighton and Hove Mortuary – Elsie Sweetman, who is my real life Cleo Morey, and Victor and Sean. Elsie started heckling me during my speech – I guess in her line of work she is not used to people talking back to her!!!!
We were graced by several of the wonderful team at Macmillan, including David North, the MD, Geoff Duffield, the Group Sales and Marketing Director and Anna Stockbridge, Sales Director and my incredible, amazing, wonderful editor, Stef Bierworth. And my tireless agent, Carole Blake, in yet another awesome pair of shoes…
The Macmillan team and James Herbert (next to Peter)
Most important of all was the presence of David Gaylor, whose career and work Roy Grace’s is modelled on. When I first met Dave he was a Detective Inspector with Sussex CID, then rose to Detective Superintendent, then to Chief Superintendent. We also had several other key members of Sussex Police, including Chief Superintendent Peter Coll, Ray Packham of the High-Tech Crime Unit, and a surprise visit from PC Paul Grzegorzek of the Local Support Unit – the heavy squad who, among other activities, execute arrest warrants. Paul is helping me on my current novel, Not Dead Enough, and was originally not able to come to the launch. Then he found himself chasing a car thief over the rooftops of Churchill Square, right by the scene of the launch party and decided to drop in – quite literally. But then the vicious brute arrested the wrong guy…
Peter James arrested at his own party!