Peter James

Dead Man's Time

Detective: Roy Grace
Location:  Brighton
Time:        Current
Genre:      Police Procedural

This is the ninth of the Roy Grace series. It concerns the brutal murder of an elderly lady and the theft from her own of both valuable antiques and a valuable watch, the only memento she and her brother have of  their father, a gangster murdered in New York ninety years previously. As Grace and his team seek the killers, the brother, himself a wealthy man begins his own brutal search for the killers and the watch.

At the same time a released convict plans a horrific revenge on Grace for putting him inside for 12 years by plotting an attack on Grace's partner and their new son.

In other aspects of the underlying story arc, we learn more about Grace's first wife who disappeared a number of years ago and who is now living under a new identity in germany, but who may be planning to return to Brighton.

The story builds to a climsx in New York with the elderly man eventually seeking revenge on the descendant of his father's murdered.

A+

Peter James' web site

Previously read
Dead Simple
Looking Good Dead
Not Dead Enough
Dead Man's Footsteps
Dead Tomorrow
Not Dead Like You
Dead Man's Grip
Not Dead Yet

Peter James

Not Dead Yet

Detective Roy Grace

Setting     Brighton

Time        Present
Genre      English Noir

This is the eighth in the Roy Grace novels set in Brighton, so far all including "Dead" in the title.

The plot centres around a Madonna-like mega-star who is in Brighton to film a historical and romantic epic to be filmed in the Brighton Pavilion and whose life is under threat.

There's also a sub plot involving a dismembered corpse found in chicken droppings on a poultry farm. Apparently a separate story from the main plot, James brings them together effectively as the novel comes to its climax

As with most sequences of novels involving the same characters there is a developing story ARC.

Grace's partner, Cleo nears the end of her pregnancy while Grace seeks to have his long missing wife, Sandy, declared dead to enable his marriage to Cleo. The novel starts to reveal more about Sandy's disappearance and her impending threat to Grace's security.

Professionally Grace solves the issue of the embarrassing leaks from his investigations to the local crime reporter Spinelli, This is possibly solved too easily and the uncovering of the guilty party concludes within two chapters with minimum effort to throw suspicion on one of Grace's team.

Rating   A

Peter James' web site

Novels in the sequence read previously
Dead Simple
Looking Good dead
Not Dead Enough
Dead Man's Footsteps
Dead Tomorrow
Dead Like You
Dead Man's Grip