From Peter’s Canadian publisher, here’s a trailer for the latest book, Before the Poison.

Note: the date of this broadcast has been changed. We originally posted that it would be the 17th, then it was pushed back to the 18th, and now it’s scheduled for the 19th. Let’s hope this time it doesn’t change again.

Peter will be sitting down with the hosts of BBC Breakfast Television on 19 August, between 8:30 and 9:00 am, to discuss his latest novel, Before the Poison. The book is being released on the 18th, so if you can, listen to Peter talk about it, then get ready to visit your favorite bookstore to buy a copy the next day.

Don’t forget to check Peter’s book tour schedule to see if he’ll be visiting a bookstore near you, so you can meet him and get a signed copy of the book.

Now available in the UK; to be release October 4 in Canada, and in February in the US.

Grace Fox poisoned her husband in January, 1953. Or did she? Though she was tried for murder and subsequently hanged, Grace remained a silent and enigmatic figure to the very end.

When Chris Lowe returns to his native Yorkshire to live in the isolated Kilnsgate House nearly sixty years later, in the wake of his wife’s untimely death, he wants only to be left alone to compose his piano sonata after years of soul-destroying, though lucrative, work writing film scores. Soon, however, as he learns the troubled history of Kilnsgate, he becomes fascinated by Grace’s story. The more he discovers about her life and her work as a Queen Alexandra’s nurse during the war, the more certain he becomes that she couldn’t have murdered her husband.

As Chris searches for other explanations of what might have happened on that snow-bound January night, through rumours of half-glimpsed figures, mysterious strangers and a missing letter, his quest to prove Grace’s innocence becomes entangled with his own need to sift through the ruins and loose ends of his own life in search of some kind of meaning and order, and his new relationship with local estate agent Heather Barlow.

Alternating between a contemporary account of Grace’s trial, her wartime journals of Dunkirk, Singapore and Normandy, and Chris’s quest for the truth, Before the Poison is a suspenseful exploration of guilt, self-sacrifice and redemption, moving inexorably towards a revelation that, when it is uncovered, will prove shattering and surprising both to Chris and to the reader.

Peter has been nominated for the ITV3 People’s Bestseller Dagger Award, organized with ITV in the UK. Peter is in good company – the other nominees are David Baldacci, Lee Child, Mark Billingham and Peter James.

You can vote now, from this web page, and you can vote through 5 October, so tell your friends who are fans of Peter’s books to vote as well.

On Friday 7th October The Crime Thriller Awards will take place in London’s Grosvenor House Hotel. The event, now into its fourth year, will be hosted by Marcus Brigstocke and broadcast on ITV3 on Tuesday 11th October.

Here’s the cover for the Canadian edition of Peter’s forthcoming Before the Poison, to be published in Canada on October 4.

Here’s the cover for Peter’s forthcoming Before the Poison, due out in the UK on August 18.

Peter will be on tour in Canada promoting his new book, Before the Poison, due out in the UK on August 18, and in Canada on October 4. We’ll be posting more information about the book soon, but here’s a list of dates and locations for the tour.

England

Thursday, August 18, 6.30pm. Waterstones, Bentall Centre, Kingston, London. Q & A with Chris Simmons.

Friday, August 19, 12.30pm. Signing at Waterstones, 1 – 3 Cornmill Centre, Darlington, County Durham DL1 1LS.

Friday, August 19, 3.00pm. Signing at Waterstones, 102 High Street, Northallerton, North Yorkshire DL7 8PP.

Tuesday, August 23, 12.30pm. Signing at Waterstones, 93 Albion Street, Leeds, West Yorkshire LS1 5AP

Tuesday, August 23, 7.30pm. Talk for Calderdale Readers and Writers Festival, Central Library, Northgate, Halifax, West Yorkshire HX1 1UN.

Wednesday, August 24, 7.00pm. Talk for Scarborough Library at the Library Concert Hall, Vernon Road, Scarborough, North Yorkshire YO11 2NN.

Thursday, August 25, 12.30pm. Signing at Waterstones, 12 Kingsgate Centre, King Street, Huddersfield, West Yorkshire HD1 2QB.

Thursday, August 25, 7.30pm. Talk at Biddulph Town Hall, High Street, Biddulph, Staffordshire ST8 6AR.

Tuesday, August 30, Lunch. Waterstones, Emerson Chambers, Newcastle, Northumberland NE1 7JF. To be confirmed.

Tuesday, August 30, PM. Event for Waterstones, 153 Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow, Scotland G2 3EW.

Wednesday, August 31, 12.30pm. Signing at Waterstones, 66 Scotch Street, Carlisle, Cumbria CA3 8PN.

Wednesday, August 31, 7.00pm. Event for Silverdell, County Hall, Preston, Lancashire.

Thursday, September 1, 12.30pm. Signing at Waterstones, Bold Street, Liverpool, Lancashire.

Thursday, September 1, 7.00pm. Event for Waterstones, Deansgate, Manchester, Lancashire.

Tuesday, September 6, 7.00pm. Talk for Explore York Library Learning Centre, Museum Street, York, North Yorkshire YO1 7DS.

Wednesday, September 7, 12.30pm. Signing at Waterstones, 24 Orchard Square, Sheffield, South Yorkshire S1 2FB.

Wednesday, September 7, 7.00pm. Event for Waterstones, 297A High Street, Lincoln, Lincolnshire LN2 1AF.

Thursday, September 8, Lunch. Waterstones, Boston, Lincolnshire. To be confirmed.

Thursday, September 8, 7.00pm. Talk with Mark Billingham at Waterstones, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire.

Friday, September 9, 7.30pm. Event for Toppings at St Peter’s Church, Ely, Cambridgeshire.

Wednesday, September 14, 12.30pm. Hull Literary Lunch at the Willerby Manor Hotel, Well Lane, Willerby, Hull, East Yorkshire HU10 6ER.

Tuesday, September 27, Evening. Talk with Ann Cleeves at the Richmond Books and Walking Festival, Richmond, North Yorkshire.

Friday, September 30, Evening. My Life in Books event with surprise guest at the Richmond Books and Walking Festival, Richmond, North Yorkshire.

Canada

Wednesday, October 12, Evening. Bryan Prince Books at the Art Gallery of Ontario with Linwood Barclay and Maureen Jennings. Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Tuesday, October 18, Evening. Wordsworth Books event with Linwood Barclay and Maureen Jennings, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.

Thursday, October 20, 8.00pm. On Stage with Ian Rankin at the Vancouver International Writers Festival, Granville Island, Vancouver, B.C. Canada.

With new Inspector Banks TV adaptions in the works, we have a couple of covers for two of the books that are being filmed. These will appear on the paperback editions of these novels starting around the time the TV adaptations air. (We don’t have any dates as of yet.)

Peter will be appearing at the Manitoba Theatre for Young People in Winnipeg next Saturday, 11th June, starting at 7.30pm with some pre-show music by the Steve Kirby Trio. The introductions start at 8.00pm and Peter will read from 8.20 to 8.45, after which the Trio will close the first half. He’ll be back on stage at 9.15pm for an onstage interview with Charlene Diehl, followed by a signing.

The pilot of the DCI Banks series, Aftermath, is being shown on the UKTV in Australia this Friday at 6.30pm. Three more novels from the series are being filmed in Yorkshire at the moment and will air on TV in the UK this autumn: Playing with Fire, Friend of the Devil and Cold is the Grave.

For more on Aftermath, see the book’s page.