On the 27 May, best-selling crime writer Peter James was lifted out of a white van that had been submerged in Shoreham Harbour, Sussex. The author, who has type 2 diabetes, was thankfully found to be breathing by paramedics and made a prompt recovery, emerging from the on-lookers looking resplendent in a dinner jacket.
The incident was a stunt arranged to launch his latest Roy Grace thriller, Dead Man’s Grip. The idea, a clever mix of Peter’s derring-do and a little subterfuge, was to make it look as though a van being winched out of the harbour by crane contained a grizzly secret, a corpse. The event mirrors a scene straight out of the book .
In front of 500 assembled guests at the launch, the ‘corpse’, with a nylon stocking over its face, was dragged out of the vehicle and bought ashore by ‘paramedics’, only to come to life shortly afterwards and revealed to be Peter James. The author promptly unzipped his wet suit to reveal a dinner suit, reminiscent of James Bond, ready to give his welcome speech to astonished guests.
“It was extremely scary to be plucked out of the sea like that” said James. “In fact the publishers, PanMacmillan made me sign a waiver saying I wouldn’t blame them for my death. But I decided death was a good career move. Look what it did for Stieg Larsson!”

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