Harsh Vardhan
ITV has renewed the crime drama series ‘Grace’ for a fifth season ahead of the premiere of the fourth installment. The filming of season 5 is slated to start in Brighton, England, in April. Russell Lewis serves as a writer along with Caroline Ip, Ben Court, Ed Whitmore, Jess Williams, and Tony Marchant. John Alexander and Julia Ford are on board to direct the episodes.
In the third season finale of the show, Detective Roy Grace faces a dual challenge — battling an obsessive stalker targeting rising star singer Gaia Lafayette and unraveling a disturbing mystery on a Sussex pig farm. As Grace delves into these dark cases, the shadow of his wife Sandy’s decade-old disappearance continues to haunt him. Despite finding solace with forensic pathologist Cleo Morey, a shocking revelation in the season finale — Cleo’s pregnancy — casts uncertainty over Grace’s newfound happiness. Complicating the matters at hand, Grace’s estranged wife Sandy resurfaces, determined to prove his paternity through surreptitious means.
Each feature-length episode of the series draws inspiration from Peter James’ ‘Roy Grace’ novels, with the fourth installment set to adapt ‘Dead Man’s Time,’ ‘Want You Dead,’ ‘You Are Dead,’ and ‘Love You Dead.’ These novels encapsulate gripping stories involving an antique robbery, an obsessive ex-lover, a potential serial killer, and a suspected black widow, all while advancing the overarching narrative of Roy’s elusive wife, Sandy.
While the narrative of season 5 remains under wraps ahead of the fourth installment’s premiere, the show has been adapting the novels in the book series in order, which indicates that the installment will most possibly draw inspiration from the next three or four novels, which are ‘Need You Dead,’ ‘Dead If You Don’t,’ ‘Dead at First Sight,’ and ‘Find Them Dead.’ The thirteenth novel explores Grace’s efforts to unravel the mystery behind the death of a woman found in a bath in Brighton. The fourteenth one narrates a successful businessman’s efforts to retrieve his son from a kidnapper. ‘Dead at First Sight’ centers on Grace’s attempts to uncover “a global empire of internet scams and the murder of anyone who tries to expose it.” In ‘Find Them Dead,’ a drug lord threatens to kill the daughter of a jury member ahead of a trial if she cannot ensure a not-guilty verdict.
We can expect the inevitable return of John Simm as DS John Grace and Richie Campbell as DS Glenn Branson in the fifth season. The ensemble cast will most likely include familiar faces, including Craig Parkinson as DS Norman Potting, Zoë Tapper as Cleo Morey, Laura Elphinstone as DS Bella Moy, Brad Morrison as DC Nick Nicholl, and Sam Hoare as ACC Cassian Pewe. Furthermore, Clare Calbraith is also expected to feature as Grace’s estranged wife, Sandy. We will likely see several new cast members in the fifth installment as well.
As ITV adapts 12 out of James’ 19 ‘Roy Grace’ novels by the end of season 4, the chances of additional seasons materializing even after the fifth installment are high. In addition to Lewis and James, the executive producers of the show include Andrew O’Connor and Paul Sandler for Second Act Productions and Patrick Schweitzer for Tall Story Pictures. Brighton, the principal location of season 5, hosted the shooting of the crime drama’s previous installments as well.
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