The Queen was left shocked at the scale of a multimillion-pound internet fraud when she quizzed a crime writer on the inspiration for his gripping new plots in the inaugural podcast by her book lovers’ charity.
Camilla recorded an interview with author Peter James about his hit Roy Grace series when she visited the set of ITV’s Grace, the screen adaptation of his books, in 2021.
Appearing briefly at the end of the first episode of The Queen’s Reading Room Podcast, Camilla, who was described as “a lifelong fan of crime fiction”, asked James: “How – because you literally bring out one a year don’t you – it must be very hard – how on earth do you think of new plots, new crimes?”
James told the Queen that he was inspired to write his Dead At First Sight novel about online dating scammers after he was approached directly by Sussex Police.
“People in Sussex have been fleeced out of £5 million in the last few years by internet fraudsters. Would I consider writing a Roy Grace thriller set in that background?” James said.
“If I did, they would give me as much research help as they could. They would show me the files, obviously no names.
“There was one lady in Sussex – £4 million, and there was several at £400,000, £200,000.”
Camilla could be heard exclaiming under her breath in amazement “£4 million… good lord”.
The Queen has followed in the footsteps of the Duchess of Sussex with the new podcast.
But Meghan’s Archetypes podcast about female stereotypes ran for just one series after her lucrative deal with Spotify ended in 2023.
The Queen’s Reading Room Podcast is available on Spotify, as well as all other platforms including Apple Podcasts.
Princess Eugenie also has a podcast for her charity The Anti-Slavery Collective.
In each episode, Camilla will be asked about her own reading, and was questioned this time on which books she enjoyed reading to her grandchildren and whether she did different voices for different characters.
The Queen, in an excerpt trailed previously, confessed she was a “hopeless” mimic at the Harry Potter characters and a “really bad actor at school”, but said her husband, the King, does all the voices “brilliantly”.
Sir Ian Rankin, known across the world for his Inspector Rebus novels, was the main focus of the first episode, speaking about his reading habits.
The crime writer said the latest book he had added to his shelves was Tackle, Jilly Cooper’s new novel.
He also described Cooper’s earlier hit book Rivals as “fantastic escapist fun”.
“That’s another book that if I’m feeling a little bit low, I know that I can go back and read that book, and that will cheer me right up,” Sir Ian said.
He revealed how he was “obsessed” with comics as a child, including The Beano, The Dandy, Superman and Batman, reading as many as 10 a week.
“Those comics which I was allowed to read became my gateway drug, as it were, to novels,” he said.
“So without those kind of steps of the ladder, I wouldn’t have ended up at university studying English literature, meeting my to-be-wife and starting to write the Rebus novels.”
The next episode will feature Dame Joanna Lumley.
The Queen’s Reading Room charity was formed from an Instagram book club set up by Camilla for literature lovers in 2021 during the pandemic.
