Grace: Peter James’s most famous creation is back on the box for a fourth run of nail-biting cases

While many authors claim all they’ve ever wanted to do is write, James had an enviable career before becoming a best-selling novelist – he produced movies starring, among others, Peter Sellers, Terry-Thomas and Michael Caine. However, one of his earliest jobs was as Orson Welles’s house cleaner – albeit very briefly.

While a film student in need of money, he answered an ad in a newsagent’s window for a domestic – it turned out it was the polymath’s wife who had placed it, and despite knowing nothing about cleaning, an earnest James landed the position on a trial basis. His path crossed with Welles just once before he was fired, but the image of him looming as James scrubbed the floors of his hallway has lived long in the memory.

What the writer-director-actor-magician would make of DS Roy Grace, Brighton’s most famous fictional cop, is anybody’s guess, but the character has turned his creator into one of the crime genre’s biggest stars. Some readers even have designs on the fictional detective.

“I’ve had letters from all over the world, saying ‘Roy Grace is the only detective I’ve ever wanted to sleep with!’” claimed James while being interviewed at July’s Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate. “I’ve spent 40 years with detectives, and the best ones are those with empathy. Grace has that. He’s the one I’d want to investigate if, God forbid, I had a relative who was murdered.”

We’re guessing that one of those letters didn’t, however, come from Queen Camilla, although she is a huge fan of James’s work, and has even visited the Grace set. She met the cast before sitting down for lunch with the writer.

“It was surreal!” he grinned. “She knows more about my books than I do! We sat and had a sandwich and chatted like old mates.”

James claims he has plans for another five Grace novels, as well as a book about the art of writing, so he’s certainly keeping himself busy. Nevertheless, he still finds the time to be involved with the TV adaptations.

“Season four is coming, and they’re filming season five now,” revealed James. “I’m very involved, which I’m happy about. ITV have been wonderful. And John Simm is the nicest guy in the world. If I had to do an E-fit of what Roy Grace looked like, it would be him.”

Whether season four or five will include an adaptation of They Thought I Was Dead: Sandy’s Story, in which the fate of Grace’s long-lost wife was finally explained, remains to be seen, but there’s plenty for viewers to get their teeth into before that.

Robert Glenister is set to join the cast, which sees Richie Campbell, Zoe Tapper and Craig Parkinson among those returning alongside Simm for a run that begins as Grace and his sidekick Branson investigate a robbery at a secluded property that may be linked to a mystery dating back to the 1960s involving the owner’s father.