INTERNATIONAL best-selling crime thriller novelist Peter James will appear in the second Meet the Author evening at Sidmouth’s Kennaway House tonight (Friday, April 19).

Tickets are still available for the talk, which will feature Not Dead Yet, the eighth in a series featuring Detective Inspector Roy Grace and set in Brighton, where Peter was born.

He will also speak about his latest in the series, Dead Man’s Time, to be published in June.

Peter is a best-selling author, published in 36 languages, and is also a film producer.

During the 1970s he was joint owner of Quadrant Films, involved in writing, producing, financing and distributing movies, mostly in Canada and the USA, including The Neptune Factor with Ernest Bornine, Ben Gazzara and Walter Pigeon, Find the Lady with Mickey Rooney, Peter Cook and Alexandra Bastedo and Spanish Fly, starring Terry Thomas and Leslie Phillips.

In 1979, Peter sold his share in the company to concentrate on writing novels full time. He co-founded Pavilion Internet plc in 1993, one of the first Internet Service Providers in the UK, which was sold to Easynet in 1998, and in 1994 Penguin published his novel Host on two floppy discs - billing it as ‘the world’s first electronic novel’.

His film career continued when in 2001 he co-founded Movision Entertainment Ltd and was MD until 2005.

Peter was executive producer on 13 films, including The Statement, starring Michael Caine and Tilda Swinton, and Merchant of Venice, with Al Pacino, Joseph Fiennes and Jeremy Irons. Orson Welles also featured in Peter’s life– he was his house cleaner when he was at film school.

Tickets (£10) include a glass of wine and are on sale at Kennaway House, Coburg Road, Sidmouth, or call 01395 515551 to reserve them. Doors open at 7pm for a 7.30pm start.

Tickets for a talk by Rachel Johnson, on Monday have sold out.