UK #1 bestseller Peter James in New Zealand this month!

When it rains, it pours, as they say. There are now six major international crime and thriller writers heading to New Zealand shores in the next few weeks - along with Simon Kernick and Michael Robotham, who will be appearing at The Press Christchurch Writers' Festival, 2010 Theakstons award winner RJ Ellory and 2010 CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger recipient Val McDermid are also touring in August and September, and now news is filtering through that another two big-name bestsellers from overseas will be here in August as well.

Peter James, the award-winning author of the Roy Grace series - the latest of which, DEAD LIKE YOU jumped straight to #1 on the UK Sunday Times bestseller list on its first week of publication earlier this year - will be in New Zealand on 30 and 31 August. Event details have not yet been confirmed, but I understand James will be appearing at a public event in Takapuna (Auckland's North Shore) on the evening of Tuesday 31 August. I will bring you more details as soon as they come to hand.

In an interesting aside, when DEAD LIKE YOU shot straight to the top of the UK charts, it was reportedly the first time in several years that that master of mystery writing marketing, James Patterson, was prevented from going straight to #1 with his latest book.

In DEAD LIKE YOU, the sixth in the award-winning Detective Superintendant Roy Grace series set in James's hometown of Brighton, a woman is brutally raped as she returns to her room at the Metropole Hotel after a New Years' Eve ball. A week later, another woman is attacked. Both victims’ shoes are taken by the offender . . .

Roy Grace soon realises that these new cases bear remarkable similarities to an unsolved series of crimes in the city back in 1997. The perpetrator had been dubbed ‘Shoe Man’ and was believed to have raped five women before murdering his sixth victim and vanishing. Could this be a copycat, or has Shoe Man resurfaced?

When more women are assaulted, Grace becomes increasingly certain that they are dealing with the same man. And that by delving back into the past - a time in which we see Grace and his missing wife Sandy still apparently happy together - he may find the key to unlocking the current mystery. Soon Grace and his team will find themselves in a desperate race against the clock to identify and save the life of the new sixth victim . .

Are you a Peter James fan? Will you be keen to see him in New Zealand? Have you read any of his Roy Grace books, or his earlier spy thrillers and paranormal work (that saw him called the 'British Stephen King' at one point)? Thoughts and comments welcome.