Philippa Perry talks the "cosy crime" renaissance, neighbour Richard Coles and husband Grayson Perry

This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine.

When psychotherapist and agony aunt Philippa Perry first became known as a public figure, with what was then her trademark silver and badger-black-striped bob (now caramel and strawberry blonde), it was as the wife of the Turner Prize-winning artist Sir Grayson Perry.

Over the years, her own profile has changed as the books she has written – full of generous wisdom arising out of her practice – became global bestsellers, with 2019’s The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read (and Your Children Will Be Glad That You Did) selling more than a million copies and being translated into over 40 languages.

Now she has moved into fiction with a cosy crime novel, Shrink Solves Murder. And if the reader had any doubt that its heroine Patricia Phillips (yes, same initials and, yes, the echo of the surname) is at least partly based on its author, there is the familiar bob-and-bright-specs face in the O of the “Solves” on the book’s cover to give you a clue.

It’s set in a village very similar to the one near Eastbourne where Philippa bought a cottage 28 years ago, so that she could swim in the sea all year round (like her heroine) and Grayson could go mountain-biking in the hills. It’s where she wrote most of the book and where they spend summers and go for weekends.

She likes the genre herself: “I enjoy reading them and they are good for indulging my love of village gossip, and to invent a load of characters who we either want to spend time with because we like them or we enjoy despising them.

“In real life we never really get endings because life moves on all the time. We all have terrible problems and we’re not quite sure how they’re going to end up. So it’s very comforting when there is an ENORMOUS problem [her voice becomes very loud for effect] of a MURDER – that gets solved.”

Richard Coles is a friend and she likes his forays into soft murder; ditto Richard Osman, Janice Hallett and her favourite, Anthony Horowitz: “It’s a bit like you’re in a group and you’re listening to all these voices and I kind of wanted to join the group and go, ‘I can do cosy crime, too!’”

There are a lot of in-jokes: the florid character Prichard Knowles is a playful take on neighbour Richard Coles who lives just over a field from her. “His sub-personality is a bit like Prichard – always telling you what road he is on, the A21 or the A267.” But does he make filthy drinks like the character (pineapple and cheese vodka, for instance)? “No, but Richard is a very brilliant chef like Prichard – he won MasterChef! It was just a little private joke, me copying Richard because he writes cosy crime.”

I ask if she wrote the book as a cynical exercise of cashing in on her name. “No, I’m not doing it for that,” Perry answers evenly. “I’m doing it because I want to enjoy myself. I don’t really need to cash in on anything. But having said that, if I was a brand new author I’d probably find it more difficult getting a deal. I got a very good deal and I think that’s to do with my name.”

Her response to a reader of her agony column who wanted to write but was afraid of doing badly was: “The courage to fail is the same courage you need to succeed, so welcome failure. If you are not failing, you’re not trying, so keep failing.” Philippa went on to say that she couldn’t get an agent for her first book and that it took five years to find a publisher.

The end of the novel leaves the possibility of a sequel. “I intend to write another and I started sketching the plot, but I never know if I’m going to be able to do it. It’s a bit like climbing a mountain – I don’t know if I’ve got enough puff to get to the top.” As for a television adaptation, she is “in talks”.

There’s something pleasingly authentic about Perry: she’s not terrified to say what she thinks. “With my character Pat Phillips I’ve taken that to new extremes. She’ll be rude to strangers if she disapproves of them. I’d like to say that I’m not as authentic as she is. I think she may take authenticity a little bit too far.” Well, she is northern. “I’m northern as well, so I just made her a bit further north!”

It has always irritated Perry when people come up to her at parties, when she is mid-conversation, to ask her if she thinks it will be OK for them to interrupt her husband when he is talking to someone. “People do that all the time. I say, ‘He’s much nicer than I am but I’m quite pissed off that you interrupted me!’ To treat me like a receptionist is a bit mad.”

She certainly didn’t need his input on the book. Both her husband and the couple’s daughter Flo have read Shrink Solves Murder – but only when it was finished. “Grayson liked it very much,” she says. “Flo wasn’t quite so sure.”

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Shrink Solves Murder (out 7 May) is available to pre-order at radiotimes.com/shop19.

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