Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #55859 in Books
• Published on: 2007-06-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 400 pages

Amazon.co.uk
Peter James came to many readers’ attention via his immense success as a horror novelist, but his more recent career as a writer of effortlessly ingenious and readable crime novels has – perhaps unfairly -- eclipsed his earlier work. (The author has claimed that he was, in any case, always essentially a crime writer – even in the days of his earlier acclaim).

Not Dead Enough marks another welcome appearance for the author’s quirkily characterised policeman Roy Grace (who we’ve already met in Dead Simple and Looking Good Dead). Here, Grace is investigating the bizarre slaying of a member of Brighton’s social elite, Katie Bishop. Her husband, Brian, appears to be in the clear – he was in another town at the time, sound asleep. But Grace begins to suspect the presence of a doppelgänger: is someone else -- nigh-identical to Bishop – involved? As in his previous cases, Grace’s diligent exhuming of murky secrets soon demonstrates that the Bishops’ outwardly settled lives had darker corners. And as Grace gets close to the truth, he finds – paradoxically – that it’s his own beleaguered private life which is on the line.

. With Not Dead Enough, we’re soon reminded that Peter James’ métier has long been machine-tooled plotting, and that particular skill doesn’t desert him here. James himself spends time with the police of the Brighton area (his own beat) and that research is seamlessly freighted into the narrative here.

Readers are confronted with a dizzying variety of tales of murder and deception these days, but this one has an individual strand that marks it out from the crowd. --Barry Forshaw

Observer
'I loved it.'

The Times
'Peter James creates a world we can smell, touch and feel...'

Customer Reviews

Fantastic!
This was the first Peter James novel I have read, and it really didn't disappoint in any area! The plot was fast, the attention to detail superb, and I just didn't want to put the book down.
The character descriptions were so spot on, especially 'Potting' the un-PC DC! The frustrations of the Police doing all they can to outwit a serial killer were true to form, the chase to catch him had me on the edge of my seat ( first time ever in a book) if this is your first PJ book, you will not be left in any doubt buy his others! I am!
Brilliant!!!

formulaic and two dimensional
This is the worst book I have read in the past five years. The plot crawls along predictably but unbelievably. The dialogue sounds unauthentic. The characters are wooden and stereotyped. There is gratuitous product placement throughout. Everyone's car and mobile phone is lovingly described. Crime fiction for idiots. Avoid at all costs.

Couldn't put it down
I have been reading thrillers and suspense novels since i was 10 years of age and i think that Peter James' books are some of the best that i've read. Of the Roy Grace series, this book in particular was one of those page turners that you read too quickly and easily.If you know the situation where you say to yourself that you'll put the book down at the end of a chapter, well, forget about it, because the end of each chapter makes you want to keep on reading. Hence, my only complaint is that i read it too quickly and was disappointed that it was finished. I'm a big fan of Roy Grace and all his colleagues. The author gets across a really good sense of what type of characters they are through his discriptions and narratives. It is a definate must for any reader of thrillers. I passed the books 'Looking Good Dead' and 'Not Dead Enough' on to my Dad, who is another avid reader of thrillers and he is now a big fan of Peter James.