This is one of the longer Roy Grace books, and that poses a little bit of a problem because each of my reviews has the same number of words as the book has pages, and yet I don’t have much more to say about it because there wasn’t a whole load of stuff going on. Still, I’ve read enough of these books by now that I’m pretty attached to most of the characters and so it was a lot of fun to revisit them and to just hang out with them. Now like I say, I’ve read these out of order and so I kind of knew what to expect and what was coming, at least with the cops’ personal lives. That’s because each of the books also covers what’s going on in the personal lives of many of Grace’s fellow coppers, but we also get a lot of Grace’s own back story including an update on his missing wife Sandy and a little bit of development when it comes to his current squeeze, Cleo. Each of the Roy Grace books can be read as a standalone, but you’ll get a little more out of it if you read them all in order. In fact, I think that the most interesting part about this particular book is the side story. I’d also say that it’s one of those rare books where the investigation of the crime is more interesting than the crime itself. Suffice to say, though, that the storyline touches on identity theft and family secrets. Then things start to get a little bit weird, and I can’t really talk about it without sharing spoilers. The problem is that the main suspect, her husband Brian, seems to be innocent.

In this one, Grace has to investigate the murder of a socialite called Katie Bishop. James is a Brighton native himself and he also spends a lot of time carrying out research so his books are as accurate as possible. This is another of Peter James’ Roy Grace novels and so as such, it follows Detective Superintendent Grace as he investigates a crime in his native Brighton.

Roy grace not dead enough