Queen to appear in favourite author’s new crime thriller about killer in Palace

The Queen is to star in a new crime novel alongside her favourite fictional detective.

Peter James’s latest Detective Superintendent Roy Grace thriller centres on a race to stop a killer at Buckingham Palace.

The Queen is understood to have been aware of the book.

James – one of Camilla’s favourite authors – is said to have carried out extensive research about the famous royal residence.

In the publicity for the novel, publisher Pan Macmillan describes James as the “Creator of Her Majesty Queen Camilla’s favourite fictional detective”.

The also King features in The Hawk Is Dead: A Killer In The Palace, which is due out in October.

The Queen, a voracious reader and passionate supporter of a number of literary charities, previously recommended James’s blockbusters as part her Reading Room book club.

In 2021, she visited the set of Grace – ITV’s television adaptation of James’s books which stars John Simm as the troubled but methodical detective – and joked about asking for a cameo role.

She told James: “I love your books. I’ve read them all, cover to cover.”