The attempted assassination of the Queen written by Peter James.

Police Off The Cuff/Real Crime Stories

Bill Cannon Police off the Cuff/Real Crime Stories

True Crime, Military, Law Enforcement, Crime

4.4 • 870 Ratings

🗓️ 28 October 2025

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Hidden Truth About Peter James' Latest Royal Thriller In THE HAWK IS DEAD (Pan Macmillan, On sale: October 21, 2025), Peter James challenges Roy Grace with the biggest, and most daunting, case of his career—solving what at first appears to be an assassination attempt on The Queen. The story begins on November 20, 2023, with Queen Camilla traveling on the Royal Train to the resort city of Brighton for a scheduled visit to the first of two hospices. What should have been a proud moment for the locals spirals into disaster when the train is derailed just north of the city inside a railway tunnel. Moments after The Queen and her entourage make it out to daylight, cell service, and the promise of safety, they are startled by a sharp cracking sound and a grisly shock—a head exploding, literally, spattering blood, bone, and brain all over The Queen’s clothing. The victim is Sir Peregrine Greaves, Her Majesty’s trusted Private Secretary. Was poor Perry the intended target? Or was, as everyone else believes, the sniper’s bullet really meant for Queen Camilla?

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello everyone and welcome to police off the cuff, real crime stories.
0:11.3	I'm your host, retired NYPD Sergeant Bill Cannon, a 27-year veteran of the NYPD.
0:18.2	We're supposed to have an outstanding guest today.
0:23.6	His name is Peter James.
0:27.4	An author, a true crime author, an amazing author,
0:30.4	has written so many New York Times bestsellers.
0:35.0	And the book that we were going to speak about today is The Hawk is Dead.
0:41.6	His latest book in which he uses the character of Detective Superintendent Roy Grace.
0:51.6	Roy Grace is one of the characters in many of his books.
0:56.2	In fact, one of them that has garnered international fame.
1:03.6	And I just see him.
1:04.5	He's in the green room right now.
1:06.6	Glad to see him.
1:07.6	I'll invite him in a few minutes.
1:09.8	But Peter James is just an unbelievable author. I can't
1:13.5	believe that he's going to be on the show. Twenty-three million books sold. That's a lot of pounds.
1:19.6	That equals, right? Anyway, the true crime genre, I think of how knowledgeable you have to be as a writer to write in that genre.
1:31.1	There's a good picture of Peter James up on the screen.
1:35.4	And how many hours he must have spent with both investigators, police, knowing police
1:42.3	jargon, knowing the way police think, knowing how police investigate,
1:47.1	knowing the science of policing, because that in investigative terms, science and the technology
1:54.9	that the police are using now is just absolutely unbelievable.
	...

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