‘Endeavour’ writer’s crime drama ‘Grace’ begins filming Season 2

New episodes of Grace has begun shooting in Brighton, England.

The first feature-length film based on Peter James’ award winning Roy Grace novels was a hit with UK viewers when it premiered this spring with 8.8m viewers.

Adapted by Endeavour creator Russell Lewis, Grace stars Life on Mars actor John Simm as Brighton-based Detective Superintendent Roy Grace.

ITV announced the commission of another three 120-minute Grace films in May.

Season 2 will adapt Peter James’ novels Not Dead Enough, Dead Man’s Footsteps, and Dead Tomorrow.

Simm is returning as Grace, alongside Richie Campbell (Liar) and Rakie Ayola (Shetland) as DS Glenn Branson and ACC Vosper.

Joining the cast this time around are Arthur Darvill (World on Fire, Broadchurch) as a Brighton entrepreneur, and Zoe Tapper (Liar) as a mortuary technician, Cleo Morey, who takes a shine to Grace.

Screenwriter Russell Lewis – who has previously penned episodes of Inspector Morse, Taggart, Cadfael, Lewis, Sharpe, and Endeavour – is once again writing the new Grace scripts.

John Simm commented: “Everyone involved with Grace is very excited to be back in Brighton bringing the next three Peter James novels to the screen. Like the first two, they’ve been brilliantly adapted by Russell Lewis…”

The three films will be directed by Brian Kelly (Downton Abbey), Kate Saxon (Endeavour), and Henrik Georgsson (The Bridge).

Season 2’s opening episode, ‘Not Dead Enough’, sees Grace and Branson investigating the murder of wealthy socialite and patron of local charities, Katya Bishop, wife of a prominent Brighton entrepreneur (Arthur Darvill), who becomes the main suspect in the investigation.

The Bishops seem to have led a charmed life, until Grace digs deeper behind the respectable facade and discovers all is not what it seems. Doing so, however, places him unknowingly in grave danger.

The second episode, ‘Dead Man’s Footsteps’, finds Grace leading the inquiry into the discovery of a woman’s skeletal remains in an old storm drain, believed to be the wife of a failed Brighton conman, who died several years prior in a plane crash.

Grace must re-trace the man’s steps in the years before his death, which leads him on a murky trail through the world of Brighton’s oldest crime families but it’s not only on the professional front that Roy is chasing ghosts.

In the season finale, ‘Dead Tomorrow’, a body is dredged up from the seabed of the English Channel it initially appears a burial at sea gone wrong, but a strange incision on the victim soon points to something very sinister.

When two more bodies are found, news spreads like wildfire through Sussex and Grace begins to unearth that this is part of an altogether more chilling design, one which forces him to confront the question of just how far anyone would go to save the ones they love.

The eighth season of Endeavour is currently airing in the UK on Sunday nights, ahead of its US premiere on PBS early next year.

Grace will return in 2022 on ITV in the UK, and on BritBox in the US.

The first seven seasons of Endeavour are available to watch on Amazon Prime and if you’re not already a member you can sign up for a free 30-day trial here!