5x15: David Peace in Conversation with Mark Lawson, Wilton's Music Hall

When the majority of fiction readers are female, and readership figures are in permanent decline,  David Peace's best-selling novels are quite the anomaly. His focus upon football in Damned United saw him soar into the best-sellers list and was later made into a blockbuster film starring Micheal Sheen . As well as fuelling its popularity, the level of accuracy and reality in the novel also sparked controversy after Peace was sued for libel by one of the people he fictionalised. His gritty crime series, the Red Riding Quartet , stood out amidst the plethora of popular thrillers for a particularly edgy avoidance of neat resolution. The books also formed the basis for a three-part Channel 4 series . After winning the prestigious  Granta Best of Young British Novelists award in 2003, Peace went on to the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for GB84, a literary exploration of the miners' strike. He has also explored the landscape of Tokyo and most recently returned to football with Red or Dead .

This diverse and unusual combination of themes, combined with deft and dramatic story-telling, makes Peace a fascinating figure. Mark Lawson, a journalist specialising in culture and arts, who has penned his own crime novels, will chat to Peace about the inspirations, processes and consequences of such a varied literary career.