Crime writer Peter James has lived in Jersey since 2018 and it’s where his latest novel, ‘I Follow You’, is based.
It tells the story of a highly respected doctor who develops a dangerous obsession with a woman he almost runs over and then begins stalking via a running app.
In the first of two interviews, Peter tells us about his new work and his most famous creation, Detective Superintendent Roy Grace, who will be moving from the pages of his novels to our TV screens in the New Year with John Simm playing the lead role.
There aren’t many thrillers that have been set in Jersey, but ‘I Follow You’ is almost entirely set on-island. It contrasts the beautiful, tranquil setting with the dark obsessions of the book’s main protagonist, a highly respected medical professional who works in Jersey’s Hospital.
It’s a marked change from writing about Detective Superintendent Roy Grace, who mostly investigates crimes in Brighton, Sussex and with the Metropolitan Police in London.
I point out to Peter that there’s a certain irony in a crime writer setting up home in such a safe and beautiful place.
He smilingly agrees, adding that while Jersey has a low crime rate ‘it certainly ain’t crime free’.
“It’s not indicating Jersey as a criminal environment and I’m not going to move Roy Grace over here and take over as Bergerac, but I did enjoy setting ‘I Follow You’ here,” he says.
The book’s main character becomes obsessed with a woman who reminds him of a girl he was infatuated with when he was 16.
“He wonders if it’s her and by pure chance he meets her two weeks later. She’s a fitness coach and a runner so he takes up running and starts stalking her on a running app.”
Anyone who’s read the Roy Grace books will know that Peter is incredibly meticulous in his research. He was pleasantly surprised at the willingness he found from staff at the hospital when he was writing the book.
“I have always had help in England, particularly from Sussex County Hospital in Brighton, but in recent years their red tape has become enormous whereas Jersey Hospital – [they helped with] everything I wanted.
“I had quite a key scene in the book where my character is performing a C-Section delivering twins. The hospital allowed me into the theatre to watch twins being born, with the parents’ consent.
“It turns out that the father was a Roy Grace fan so that helped. The hospital gave me such good and warm help, it was brilliant. The Police could not have been more helpful either. Maybe that’s because they don’t get besieged by writers like they do in England. I felt access to research was much easier here.”
Peter goes out every few weeks with the Police in England to ensure he’s up to speed with the latest developments in policing methods. He spends time with Sussex Police in Brighton and Hove but he also goes out with The Metropolitan Police in London to get a different perspective at the sharp end of crime-fighting. The most recent Roy Grace title ‘Find Them Dead’ sees the fictional policeman transferred to The Met for six months.
“Going out with The Met is a whole different experience. It’s the wild west up there sometimes. I was out as part of my research with the Violent Crime Task Force, chasing moped gangs, just after they had been sanctioned to knock them off.
“These moped gang riders are really nasty people because some carry bottles of acid and they’ll throw acid in someone’s face for a mobile phone they’ll get £30 for and destroy someone’s life forever.
“We were ripping around all parts of Central and North London and we actually tapped one and knocked him flying off. The car pursuits in London are in a different league to Brighton. I once was in a car going at 100mph around Knightsbridge in the rush hour.”
It’s amazing that he gets so close to the action, I say.
“Yes, it really helps. It’s so important to me. I’m a stickler for detail and accuracy.
“I don’t think any organisation on the planet changes as fast as the Police because police and criminals are playing constant catch-up. The police get one jump ahead, the crims catch up, occasionally the crims get one step ahead, then the police catch up.”
When Peter wrote the first Roy Grace novel in 2004, the police still made their notes in longhand on notepads.
“Now it’s on tablets. The police never wore cameras and now every copper up the street wears a bodyworn camera.
“The traffic cops used to have a good memory for number plates, now they look at the screen on the dash, which has got ANMP (automatic number plate recognition). It comes up with the number, the insurance details, and technology.
“Back in the second Roy Grace novel, Looking Good Dead, was partly set in the high-tech crime unit of Sussex CID. That unit was then virtually a joke. The head of it was a former traffic copy who could just about use a computer and two geeks. And now it’s all digital forensics and the beating heart of criminal investigations along with all other forensics because everything we do is digital now, everything we do leaves a trace.”
Peter says he would ‘definitely’ set another story in Jersey and has used one of his favourite island restaurants in a scene in the novel, ‘Dead At First Sight’ which he wrote shortly after moving to the island.
“I had some scenes with a villain, a Mister Big living in Jersey and I had a fight in a restaurant, one of my favourite restaurants, the Quayside. The guy had oysters tipped on his head and then arrested by the police.
“‘I Follow You’ works really well in Jersey because it’s quite claustrophobic in the sense that there’s this woman who is being more and more dangerously stalked by this charming man, and it is hard to avoid someone on a small island..
“You’ve got a highly respectable gynaecologist at the hospital, his patients love him yet inside there’s a monster lurking. I guess in my writing I love things happening to ordinary people. The Everyday Sinister, I call it.”
