Peter James

Sleuthing by the Sea: ITV's new detective drama Grace

John Simm as Roy Grace (credit: ITV)

Grace was shot under stringent coronavirus protocols but you would never know an epidemic was sweeping the nation from watching ITV’s new Sunday-night drama. This was as the broadcaster and the show’s producer intended – and immensely pleasing for its star, John Simm. “No one wants to see anything about Covid. It was the most depressingly boring year and we don’t want to see it on film,” he says.

Simm plays detective superintendent Roy Grace, the eponymous hero of Peter James’s bestselling crime novels.

ITV’s new crime drama Grace begins filming

Based on the first two acclaimed novels by Peter James called Dead Simple and Looking Good Dead, the two films star Jon Simm (Doctor Who) as Roy Grace, the tenacious Brighton based Detective Superintendent.

Lewis said: “Each story is a fantastic, hair-raising, twisting, switch-back of a roller-coaster ride that grips the reader from first to last, and the opportunity to translate that best-selling magic to television is like all one’s Christmases and birthdays come at once.”