Dead Simple

Dead Simple is the first Peter James novel I have ever read and I found it very entertaining and enjoyable. His central character is the very determined and strong willed police officer, Detective Superintendent Roy Grace, whom I found to be quite unorthodox and a very likeable character. The book starts out with a bachelor party gone wrong. Michael Harrison, who is about to get married, is on his way to the bachelor party hosted by his five best friends. They have designed something unusual and potentially highly dangerous. Because they suffered Michael's often tasteless pranks they have decided to pay him back by burying him alive in a coffin for a few hours. But when the deed is done the four of them (one friend has been delayed and show more is supposed to join them later) will lose their lives in a car crash, leaving Michael in a very dangerous position.

This is the just the first of many twists in this story. Mark, the one who missed the fun and knows exactly where his friend is, has an agenda of his own and prefers not to say anything to the police. All this raises your anticipation of what will be coming next. It's all the things a good thriller should be. It locks you in right from the start with lots of twists and turns and is written in short, electrifying chapters.

I think the crucial ingredient you have to have to make a good detective novel is a main character that you can empathize with. The author has done an excellent job with his creation of the fallible Roy Grace. He comes with a load of baggage but he gets things done (not necessarily in the right fashion every time).

The one part of the story I'm not sure I loved was where Roy, who is a believer in the supernatural, often visits mediums to help him with the case. I would be interested in how that story line progresses in the future books.

I just couldn’t put it down and can't wait to pick up the next one (Looking Good Dead). show less

After seeing rave reviews of Peter James novels on THE Book Club on Facebook, I picked up a few copies in one of the church fayres I visited recently. When I recorded them on Goodreads I realised that I had purchased numbers 9, 10 and 11 in the Roy Grace series. I couldn't possibly start a series at this stage, however unrelated each book is, so I bought a pack of the first three novels from The Book People for the bargain price of £4.99. In the spirit of full disclosure, I then wrapped them up and gave them to my Mam for her birthday - even more of a bargain! (She loved them, by the way!)

Dead Simple is a fantastic start to a series and has perhaps the best chapter 1 of all time. Michael Harrison, who has been known to pull a prank or show more two himself, is on his stag night with four friends. His friends decide to pay him back for all the pranks he pulled on them by placing him in a coffin and burying him in a shallow grave. Before screwing down the lid of the coffin, they leave Michael with a torch, porn magazine, bottle of whiskey, walkie talkie and a breathing tube. Their plan is to drive away for a few drinks then go back to collect Michael, but on their way to the next pub they are involved in a road traffic accident and there are no survivors. How long can Michael survive when nobody knows where he is?

As Michael's wedding day looms, and the police look at the option of a runaway groom, his distraught fiancée, Ashley, can't believe what is happening. Ashley is determined that the wedding will go ahead, so she turns up at the church with her last shred of hope that Michael will appear. As the police hunt for any clues, it soon becomes apparent that some people know more about Michael's whereabouts than they are prepared to reveal. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer, is all I'm prepared to say!

As Detective Superintendent Roy Grace investigates Michael's disappearance, he's prepared to use any means available to him, however unconventional, to find out what happened to Michael. As the clock ticks and the plot thickens, I thought my heart was going to beat out of my chest. I simply couldn't turn the pages fast enough.

Dead Simple is an edge of your seat, race against time thriller and a cracking start to a series. show less

It's Michael Harrison's stag night. He and four of his friends are on a pub crawl. Although Michael has promised his fiancée not to get too drunk, he's having a good time and feeling virtually no pain. The only thing missing is his best friend, Mark, but Mark was out of town on business and his plane back home to Brighton has been grounded by fog. Just when things are really starting to heat up, Michael's friends take their revenge on him for all of his stag night pranks against him and put him in a coffin in a grave. Their intention is to make him sweat a little and come back in a few hours and dig him up. As they're driving off they are in a horrible car accident. Three die on impact and the fourth has suffered severe injuries and is show more comatose. Enter Detective Superintendent Roy Grace. Grace has been asked by a friend and co-worker to help out on Michael’s disappearance. Can they find Michael before his upcoming nuptials or before he dies of lack of oxygen or worse?

Dead Simple is the first in the Roy Grace series by Peter James. Grace is not your average police officer. He is relatively young to be a detective superintendent and was on a fast track until a defense attorney mocks him for his belief in the paranormal, specifically the use of psychics on his cases. Grace is thirty-nine years old and has been grieving the disappearance of his wife Sandy for nine years. He refuses to have her legally declared dead because he still holds out hope that she'll be found. Grace's abilities as an outstanding police officer are admired by most and it is precisely due to this admiration that his friend and co-worker Glenn Branson that he is called in on Michael Harrison's disappearance. Roy doesn't quite believe Michael's best-friend and best man Mark Warren when he says he had no idea what his friends were up to on that night, he had only planned a pub crawl. Although Michael's fiancée Ashley appears to be distraught over his disappearance, there's something about her manner that has Roy wondering about her as well.

Dead Simple is part thriller, part suspense, part police procedural, and a great read. Roy Grace is a quirky but likeable character and wholly believable as a police officer. His interaction with friends and coworkers adds to his likeability quotient and adds to the reader's understanding of Grace the man and Grace the police officer. This seemingly simple case of a missing man becomes anything but simple as the story evolves. Just when you think you know who is doing what and why, Mr. James throws in a nice plot twist and you're off in a completely new direction. There are bad guys and even worse guys in this story and they provide the perfect foil for Grace and his abilities. All of the action in the story takes place over a span of five days, a fast-paced, suspense-filled five days. Does Grace find the bad guy(s) in the end? Is Michael still alive? What was the motive behind Michael's "abduction?” You know I'm not going to reveal those types of details; you have to read this delightfully twisted story for yourself to find out. One thing I can tell you is that I'll be reading more of the Roy Grace series by Mr. James because I'm totally hooked. show less

What a fun book to read! The outcome of the prank itself is bad enough, and most writers would take that one idea, run with it, and have a good book. Peter James does a Churchill with this same idea. One simple prank-- a riddle-- which he then wraps up in a larger mystery and finally tosses into an enigma with even greater implications. The fun for readers is to savor each page, to tease out the clues, to deduce what's going on... and to hope that Detective Superintendent Roy Grace can put it all together in time to save Michael Harrison's life.

Peter James has also created a fascinating main character in Roy Grace. As a young boy "Grace had been addicted to cop shows on television, to books about detectives and cops of every kind-- show more from Sherlock Holmes to Ed McBain. He had a memory that bordered on photographic, he loved puzzles, and he was physically strong." Now that he's been on the force for a few years, Grace realizes that "in this modern, politically correct world, you could be a law enforcement officer at the peak of your career one moment and a political pawn the next." It's that realization that can make showing up at work in the morning a bit grim.

The juxtaposition of a thriller-type plot and a nuanced character study is what makes Dead Simple so much fun to read. The adrenaline junkie portion of my reader's brain could gorge on all the twists and turns while the more introspective and thoughtful portion of my brain could savor James's characterizations. This book had been sitting on my to-be-read shelf for a long, long time. Now I know why it kept catching my eye each time I walked past. I can't wait to continue with this series! show less

The beginning of this book is the creepiest I have ever run across. Anxious to play a prank on their soon-to-be-married friend Michael Harrison, known for his pranks, four of his friends get him drunk and passed out, then bury him in a coffin with only a tube for air, a porn magazine and a walkie-talkie. Then they drive off and are T-boned by a concrete truck. All are killed. The tow truck driver's retarded son (or should I say mentally challenged), finds the walkie-talkie in the grass where it had been thrown by the accident, talks to Michael, but then drops it and thinks he has broken the unit. Now he's afraid to tell anyone about what he found. Michael's realization that he is buried and that no one is answering his increasing show more frantic calls on the walkie-talkie will give you nightmares, or at least it would, if you're susceptible to that sort of thing. Forget supernatural/horror crap, realism is far more frightening.

Superintendent Roy Grace is charged with finding the missing man who disappeared just three days before he was to be married. Michael's friend and business partner we soon learn has it in for Michael and Ashley's Michael's intended is startled to learn that the business had considerable funds in a Cayman Islands account. Or is she? (Spoiler police, please note:These really aren't spoilers as we learn the details from several points of view early in the book.) The scenes of Michael growing increasingly frantic in his coffin are really frightening. Some interesting twists kept things moving along nicely. show less

Dead Simple is the explosive first novel in the Roy Grace series of police procedurals, and it is a compulsively readable tale of disappearance, deception, betrayal and murder. Michael Harrison’s four best buddies take him on a pub hop a few days before he’s to marry Ashley, the love of his life. Michael’s partner in his successful company, Double-M Properties, Mark Warren, who is also his best man, misses the festivities because he is away on business. Michael, a bit of a joker, has pulled pranks on all of his friends, and the idea is to get one back on him. But when the prank goes horribly wrong and suddenly turns into a missing-person case, everyone, crooks and cops alike, is forced to improvise. Detective Superintendent Roy show more Grace heads up the search for Michael, which rapidly escalates into a case of multiple murder and extortion. He looks to Michael's family, to Mark and to Ashley for help, but it turns out that almost everyone has his or her own agenda. James has conjured up a situation in which no one can be trusted and nothing is how it appears at first glance. The conspiracy runs deep, and an innocent man’s life hangs in the balance. Dead Simple keeps the reader guessing until the final page and Roy Grace proves himself to be a complex, sympathetic character with a tragic past whose return in subsequent novels is most welcome. A gripping inaugural entry in a highly regarded series of suspense thrillers. show less

Stag nights have changed significantly over the years. No longer just an opportunity for a drink or three down the local boozer with your best mates, nowadays stag dos – and their not-to-be-outdone female companion, hen dos – and more likely to see the potential groom flying off to Prague or Amsterdam with every male companion he can persuade to holiday with him. Regardless of your opinions on this development, I can promise you that no-one wants a stag night like Michael Harrison’s.

== What’s it about? ==

Michael is a renowned prankster whose friends have experienced his devious tricks too many times, particularly on their own stag nights. But that’s okay: tonight they are going to get their revenge. What appears to be quite a show more traditional stag do has been given a vicious twist which no-one could expect the groom to enjoy, but matters take a further turn for the worse when Michael disappears and his stag night companions die.

One man should have some answers, but he’s claiming ignorance. It’s up to DS Roy Grace, a man whose own wife disappeared without a trace nine years ago, to find Michael and discover the truth about the missing man’s best friend and his beautiful, distressed fiancee.

== What’s it like? ==

Thoroughly rooted in police procedure (with one key and incredibly irritating exception). Packed with big twists to make you draw a pantomime-esque intake of sharp breath and cry ‘ooh’, this is a gripping (albeit occasionally frustrating) read.

‘Dead Simple’ introduces us to DS Roy Grace, who is the lead detective in Peter James’ hugely popular ‘Dead’ series, so it’s good that he’s a largely interesting and sympathetic character with a backstory just waiting to be fully developed, but at times he seems so far behind the curve it’s a bit odd. Yes, the reader has a significant advantage in that we are given increasingly surprising glimpses into the lives of Michael’s closest companions – his best friend and business partner, Mark, and his beautiful fiancee, Ashley – but even Grace is briefly surprised at one point when he wonders why no-one in the police force (including him) has made a rather obvious connection.

Then again, he is rather tired, and James shows us clearly how dedicated police officers struggle to balance work and home life (at least Grace doesn’t have much of the latter to worry about, though we do witness him have to repeatedly bail out of the few personal commitments he does make). I really enjoyed the procedural elements, where Grace is briefing his team members, hearing their reports, crunching the numbers (there’s a wonderful moment where his face goes white as he realises he’s ‘wasted the best part of a thousand pounds of his budget on soil analysis’) and attending autopsies. This is James’ strength, and it was no surprise to learn at Crimefest16 that he has spent many a fascinating hour out on patrol with his local police force, nor that he views the police as “a major part of the glue that holds our society together”. Certainly, this book presents a positive view of the officers it features: all are hardworking and diligent, though one (younger) officer is perhaps a little trusting.

== Final thoughts ==

The twists are truly stunning, and it’s easy to see why James has been in talks to get the Grace series televised; the development of the storyline is fantastically dramatic and will likely have you leafing back through previous chapters to check and see if you missed any obvious pointers…then holding your head in frustration as the police continue to miss vital clues (budget constraints mean Grace opts not to put a watch on his main suspect). The claustrophobia of one character’s experience is well-evoked and I imagine that if you’re familiar with Brighton’s roads, you may well be able to follow in detail the book’s denouement.

As for the denouement itself…this was a little disappointing. In essence, after a lengthy chase scene, Grace (and Peter James) cheat. Can’t solve the case? Let’s involve the supernatural. Now, leaving aside the question of your dis/belief in the supernatural (James and his detective are believers), it’s disappointing that a case so focused on procedure had an ending that side-stepped it. For resolute disbelievers, this disappointment is likely to be compounded by irritation, which is a shame at the end of an involving narrative.

Still, there’s a definite ending for the reader, even if the police have a number of unanswered questions. This is something I have previously liked about James’ books: they have proper endings, with no cliffhangers to force you to buy the next installment in the series (though obviously the missing wife is designed to build some intrigue). James trusts his readers will have enjoyed his story enough to want to read the next book anyway. And he’s right.

I shall continue to follow the investigations of Roy Grace, though I am slightly perplexed by a character so beholden to his memory of his missing wife that he cannot throw out her toothbrush or sell her car, but can go on dates with other women, and look forward to reading the rest of the ‘Dead’ series. show less