Peter James has sold 23 million copies of his crime thrillers worldwide with 21 consecutive UK Sunday Times number ones.
It’s afforded him an enviable lifestyle. At the end of his 60s (he’s now 76), he and second wife, Lara, moved to Jersey. ‘We’re Brexiles,’ he says, ‘I also wanted somewhere quiet, a bolt-hole in which to write.’
He’s back on home turf today to launch the seventh adaptation of one of his thrillers, Picture You Dead, set in the veiled world of high-end art forgery, already a bestseller on paper and surely set to replicate that success on stage in an upcoming major UK tour.
Peter met producer Josh Andrews at a party in 2010 and they hit it off immediately. ‘We have similar taste.’ Writing books and writing stage plays are two quite different disciplines, of course, quite apart from the fact it would be torture, says Peter, slimming down 120,000 words or so on paper into a 25,000-word script for two hours of theatre.
Step forward Shaun McKenna, the writer who has adapted six of the thrillers for the stage and has just completed the script for Picture You Dead – the last Grace book but three.
What made the book such a pleasure to write in the first place, says Peter, was that he had the great good fortune to meet real-life forger David Henty, 65, who lives up the road in Saltdean.
‘Back in 2015, I co-wrote a book, Death Comes Knocking: Policing Roy Grace’s Brighton, with former Commander of Brighton and Hove Police, Graham Bartlett. It was Graham who introduced me to Henty.’
Twenty years earlier, Henty had been a highly successful passport forger specialising in fake watermarks. When the police eventually kicked in the door of the forgery factory, Henty was arrested, along with his co-conspirators, and subsequently sentenced to five years in prison. It was to be the very making of him.
His relatively harmless white-collar crime meant he had a pretty easy time of it inside. ‘I quickly found my way to the art room where I could paint to my heart’s content under the watchful eye of a couple of teachers.’ What he couldn’t have predicted was his innate talent.
He has the rare gift of being able to copy the work of any painter from Fragonard to Caravaggio (‘He’s my favourite: I love the drama in his paintings’), from Van Gogh to Rembrandt, from Picasso to modern-day Banksy. And he can fool almost anyone that these paintings are genuine originals. ‘It’s what gave me the idea of the plot for Picture Me Dead,’ says Peter.
Last word to Peter himself. So, what is it about whodunits, in his opinion, that appeals to the reading – or theatre-going – public?
People love being scared,’ he says, ‘although in a safe way. Bad things happen in the world so it’s satisfying to see them resolved. And there’s no harm in throwing in a little gallows humour along the way.
Welcome to two hours of thrills and spills at Mayflower Theatre!
Peter James’ Picture You Dead
27 February – 1 March | Mayflower Theatre
DSI Grace investigates a cold case that leads him to the secretive world of fine art, but beneath the respectable veneer lurks a dark underworld of deception and murder.