Grace against time

John Simm is back in the Brighton-based crime drama. SARAH MORGAN finds out more

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Some things are, it seems, simply meant to be.

Take turning Peter James's long-running Roy Grace series of novels into a TV drama. Not only does the show have a ready-made fanbase because the books sell in their millions around the globe (the Queen herself is said to be a fan), but they're already pretty cinematic, perhaps because James worked as a film producer before putting pen to paper.

The only surprise is that it took so long for them to make it to the screen the first Grace book, Dead Simple, was published in 2005, while the TV series didn't appear until 2021. However, ITV1 is making up for lost time we're about to be treated to the fifth series.