'It has more antiques shops than anywhere else, so it's a great place to get rid of goods and launder money. It also has the largest number of injecting drug users of any city in the UK. It has a wealthy middle-class who are into their recreational drugs and, above all, it's just a wonderful place to live.

'So everything adds up for the criminal elements. I wouldn't want to live anywhere else.'

It's the seedy side of Brighton that forms the backdrop to James' enormously successful series of crime novels; critics say that no one since Greene has been able to capture so perfectly the atmosphere - and the characters - of England's southern seaside city.

His latest work, Not Dead Enough, has recently been released in Asia - hence his whistle-stop signing tour taking in Hong Kong and Bangkok - and it once again follows the exploits of Brighton-based detective Roy Grace, a likeable character made to battle his own demons as he lifts the lid on his city's criminal side.

This time round Grace is investigating the murder of a beautiful young socialite and a suspect who appears to have been in two places at once. Like the author's previous two Grace novels, the action is almost cinematic in its structure, bouncing from event to event with a pace that keeps the pages turning.

It comes as little surprise to learn that the former scriptwriter is busy adapting the character for the small screen while putting the finishing touches to his next caper. All the while though, James keeps up his research. By hitting the streets of Brighton - from his base in a village nearby - James, 59, says he's able to keep his stories as real, and as accurate, as possible.

'You need to, otherwise people can see through your stories,' he says. 'Brighton has this underbelly - and I grew up there. In 1840, when the London railway was built, all these criminals moved down there because, at that stage, London wasn't a very nice place to live unless you were very rich. They brought things like cock fighting to Brighton, they brought the gangs and they brought a lot of crime. That's the history of the place and you can bring that alive through the characters you create.'

Fellow author Keith Waterhouse (Billy Liar) once famously remarked that Brighton 'looks as though it is a town helping the police'. And James says the amount of crime taking place in and around the city means that the forces of law and order are a constant companion.

Through his personal history with the city, James has been able to form a special bond with the Sussex county police force - something he again feels is vital to make his novels seems as real as possible.

'I spend one day in every 10 with them so we have developed a very good relationship,' he says. 'I just go along with them and a lot of what I see makes its way into my books, as do a lot of the people I meet.

'There is a trade-off for them because I think anyone wants what they do to be portrayed well and I think I do that. I make a big effort to get it right and to be authentic. For my part, being with them gives me more depth to my writing than any level of other research can give.'

One recent encounter that may soon find its way onto the page involved James tagging along on a early-morning raid to pick up a man wanted for a spate of armed robberies. He was warned beforehand that things could turn a little nasty - and they did.

'They had plain-clothed guys hidden down the street and they had basically sealed off this block of flats,' says James. 'They had dog handlers and all that and they said to me to keep clear of the door in case he shoots. We get there, they knock and this big ugly guy comes rushing out, bites this copper on the nose, shoves his fingers into his eyes and is eventually cuffed.

'He looks up from the ground and says, 'I hope you coppers fix my f***ing door. Last time you did this, you took me away and I got f***ing burgled.' For me, that kind of thing is priceless.'

James says he began writing in his teens - there was always a notebook lying around with stories or the beginnings of stories scribbled down. But after finishing school at Charterhouse he went on to Ravensbourne Film School. From there he moved to North America, finding work as an assistant on a children's television show, until one day its writer fell ill.

'The station manager had seen on my CV that I had won a poetry contest at school so he said, 'You can write so off you go,'' says James. 'That was the start of it really.'

He spent more than two decades writing for film and television, eventually producing feature films such as 2004's The Merchant of Venice. But he kept writing his stories. His first novel, Down Under (2005), was more concerned with the paranormal than crime but James soon found his calling. A slew of awards and impressive sales figures have followed his move into the underworld.

'I did enjoy my time in film but with your work in that industry there are always too many people involved,' he says. 'You write the script and then if you get the film made, the actors all take it home and change things - the director does, everyone does. So you're left with a feeling that it's not really your own work and I felt that I wanted more than that. With a novel basically what you write is what you get. It's a much better feeling.'

The beginning of Inspector Grace came when an editor at his publishing house suggested the world was ready for a new, somewhat quirky, detective. James had been a childhood fan of Sherlock Holmes and all his foibles, so that gave him a starting point.

'You look at people you know - and Grace is a lot of one particular person but bits of a few people,' says James. 'But Holmes was all about puzzles. So I thought it might be interesting to have a character who had a puzzle of his own that he couldn't solve.'

Hence Grace has to deal with his wife's disappearance some years before. The fact haunts him, and almost everything he becomes involved in has her shadow hanging over it. 'It means he hasn't been able to move on in his personal life at all,' James says. 'He's constantly visiting clairvoyants, people involved in the spirit world, to help his search so that adds another element to his story.'

Grace also takes up cases that have long gone unsolved. 'I liked the idea of having him surrounded by all these ghosts,' says James. 'Cases that have run their course, where he becomes the last hope for these people. Everyone else might have given up on them but he is still in there fighting for some justice and for some answers.'

Next for the inspector is a mystery involving a man who fakes his disappearance in the aftermath of the World Trade Centre attacks. To ensure authenticity in his writing, James again spent time on the ground, this time with policemen in New York, following them on the beat and seeing at first-hand how differently they went about things compared to their English counterparts.

Even a few days in Hong Kong seems to have sparked his interest in having Grace visit our shores. 'I think we'll have him coming through Hong Kong at some stage for sure,' he says.

'The city has such a rich history of crime that has virtually gone untapped in the crime-fiction arena. It would be the perfect place for him to come and work.'

And, given James' history, perhaps it's the perfect place for a crime writer to live.

Writer's notes

Genre Crime fiction

Latest book Not Dead Enough

Age 59

Family Married. Mother - the late Cornelia James - was glovemaker to the queen.

Lives In a manor house near Ditchling in Sussex, England, and a flat in Notting Hill, London

Other works Down Under, Possession, Dreamer, Sweet Heart, Twilight, Prophecy, Host, Ancient Inventions, Alchemist, The Truth, Denial, Faith, Dead Simple, Looking Good Dead.

Other jobs Screenwriter and film producer

Next project Detective Roy Grace investigates a man who tries to benefit financially in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks on New York's World Trade Centre.

What the critics say

'His Brighton is a direct descendant of Graham Greene's, with a leaky underbelly populated by the dregs of society. It is lovingly realised.'

- Peter Burton, Daily Express

Author's bookshelf

Brighton Rock by Graham Greene

'Graham Greene is my favourite novelist and this is my favourite book of his. Set in my hometown, where I set my Roy Grace series of crime novels, Brighton Rock is a gripping, dark book about the criminal underbelly of Brighton, about religious faith and about human nature.'

Get Shorty by Elmore Leonard

'They say Leonard is 'the man' and you just have to read him to understand why. His characters are so vivid, so engaging, you don't even need plot. You could have his characters reading the phone directory for 300 pages and you'd still be gripped.'

The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

'I started reading Sherlock Holmes as a teenager and instantly wanted to be a writer of detective novels. Another thing I admired about Conan Doyle was his lifelong interest in the paranormal - something I share. This book exquisitely combines the detective story with the supernatural - or so you think.'

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut Jnr

'I first read this book when I was 23 and it changed both my perception of the world and my perception of the boundaries of the novelist. Paradoxically, this insane, insanely funny novel is the default book I return to whenever I feel the world - or my world - has gone mad.'

Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin

'A masterpiece of spare, economical writing, of characterisation, emotion and quiet understatement. There is no horror on the pages: Levin puts it all straight into your mind.'