Picture You Dead is the latest in Peter James’s Roy Grace series of crime novels set in Brighton and Hove in beautiful Sussex and it is just as gripping as all of its predecessors. Roy Grace and Glenn Branson are working as well together as usual, sharing their deep friendship and interest in each other’s personal lives and putting all their efforts and those of their supporting team into solving the cold case murder of an art dealer in 2015.
The case takes the Major Crime unit into the world of fine art, its collectors and its traders. The villain of the story, who bears a weird resemblance to an extremely sinister looking Clive Owen (Mr James, how could you?), lives in the kind of opulent splendour that can have been achieved honestly only through inheritance or by ‘rock stars or tech gazillionaires’. Co-incidentally, things start happening in the present time which appear to relate to the cold case of 2015.
The terrible sorrow in Roy Grace’s life is somewhat alleviated by his and Cleo’s joy as they await the birth of their second child. Glenn Branson’s marriage plans are looking uncertain and Norman Potter’s health issues are worrying. The personal lives of the detectives are always immensely interesting and illustrate the difficulties police officers face in trying to maintain an acceptable work/life balance.
Away from the main story, Peter James has introduced the scourge of the revolting practice of puppy farming which, I hope, means more will be heard of this in a future book. Another matter is also raised right at the end of the book, so it looks like we lucky Peter James fans have a treat in store, again!
Congratulations to Peter James on another brilliant novel.
Published by Macmillan
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