Not Dead Enough: Amazon.ca: Peter James: Books

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Review

"'James is a master plotter... this follow-up to Dead Simple cannot fail to thrill' Daily Mail 'Will have you glued to your deckchair' Observer" --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Book Description

On the night Brian Bishop murdered his wife, he was sixty miles away, asleep in bed at the time. At least, that’s the way it looks to Detective Superintendent Roy Grace who is called in to investigate the kinky slaying of beautiful young Brighton socialite, Katie Bishop.

Soon, Grace starts coming to the conclusion that Bishop has performed the apparently impossible feat of being in two places at once. Has someone stolen his identity, or is he simply a very clever liar? As Grace digs deeper behind the facade of the Bishops’ outwardly respectable lives, it starts to become clear that all is not at all as it first seemed. And then he digs just a little too far, and suddenly the fragile stability of his own troubled, private world is facing destruction...

Praise for Looking Good Dead:

‘James is a master plotter... this follow-up to Dead Simple cannot fail to thrill’ Daily Mail

‘Will have you glued to your deckchair’ Observer

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5.0 out of 5 stars Airtight Alibi - or not, Nov 22 2007

By

Ted Feit (Long Beach, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 100 REVIEWER)

This review is from: Not Dead Enough (Paperback)

Reading the first few pages of Not Dead Enough, Peter James' terrific new novel, is like seeing again friends one has only met a couple of times before, briefly but memorably: Roy Grace, 39-year-old Detective Superintendent with the Sussex CID, his best mate Glen Branson, still having marital problems; Cleo, with whom a romance had just started to blossom in the last book; and the other inhabitants of Grace's world in and around Brighton and Hove, England.

The first two books in this series, Dead Simple and Looking Good Dead, were among the best this reviewer read in 2006, and this newest offering is a worthy third entry.

Katie Bishop, beautiful young socialite, is found dead in her home, brutally murdered. When the police find her husband, Brian, to notify him of his wife's murder, he is 60 miles away attending a golf tournament. His alibi seems to be valid, and his shock and grief at the news seem genuine. The police are stumped - he could not have been in both places at once, could he? Is he lying? Is he being framed? DS Grace finds that the answers to these questions are elusive, yet all the evidence points to Brian as the murderer. In the midst of this, Grace suddenly finds his world tilted on its axis, as it appears that his beloved wife, Sandy, missing for over nine years with no clue as to how or why she disappeared, may still be alive and well.

The identity of the killer is a true puzzle, for the police and the reader, with tantalizing clues thrown at both. An at-first-improbable-seeming element arises, but the quality of the author's writing makes the willing suspension of disbelief on this point easier. While perhaps not as riveting as the first two books in the series, it is constantly engrossing, and the author soon ramps up the tale and the suspense to a thoroughly satisfying conclusion.

[I knew I would love this book as soon as I saw that the author had dedicated it to his three dogs.]

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Amazon.com: 3.6 out of 5 stars (5 customer reviews)

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars a fine thriller, Aug 9 2010

By John E. Drury "jedrury" - Published on Amazon.com

This review is from: Not Dead Enough (Paperback)

Peter James' hero, Roy Grace, acts as like a football coach dispatching his assisting police officers to undertake the various investigative, technological and scientific tasks to solve the brutal slaying of a wealthy woman in Brighton. The cops meet each evening to review the day's work ratcheting up the revelations like a wrench turning and turning as the intensity of the storyline moves closer to the end. Grace puts on his helmet at the end to finish off the solution in a most energized way. To humanize Grace, the author burdens him with the anguishing search for his wife (gone missing for nine years), his new love who is threatened by the crazed murderer at the end and the recurring marriage problems of his best friend and fellow cop. James excels in descriptions of action scenes and dialogue and bringing this thriller to a satisfying ending.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Another good one!, Jun 1 2009

By Helen Simpson - Published on Amazon.com

This review is from: Not Dead Enough (Paperback)

A first for me...as I knew who the killer was with just over 200 pages still left to read!! - there are 610 pages altogether but I have to admit a sunny weekend in the garden and I raced through it.

Having read the others in the Roy Grace series I felt safe in the knowledge that I'd get an interesting thriller with good characterisation and this didn't disappoint. Although there are quite a few characters and several storyline threads, they just add to the realism of the story.

My only negative comment would be that I wish Grace's missing wife would turn up dead so he (and we!) can have some closure and he can move on relationship wise. That said I do think his feelings have been well written and have helped me as the reader, form a rounded picture of his character in my mind.

Looking forward to the next.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Acceptable as an airplane book., Mar 2 2008

By frumiousb "frumiousb" - Published on Amazon.com

This review is from: Not Dead Enough (Paperback)

Like many readers, I first knew Peter James from his horror novels. I have been reading these Roy Grace detective novels with some interest, although I have to say that I still find myself missing something in his work.

Not Dead Enough spins a tale about a man who is a seemingly obvious murder suspect, if it only were not for the fact that it required him to to be in two places at the same time. The themes of the day are obsession and revenge. It kept me reading, I will give it that much. I do have to say that had I not been on an airplane, the overly complicated plot would most likely have struck me as rather tiresome.

The quality of the writing is good, and I like Roy Grace as a character. I plan to give James the benefit of the doubt and see if I can find something in the series than I like better than Not Dead Enough.

Not bad though, as airplane reading.

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 5 reviews 3.6 out of 5 stars