Peter James – Not Dead Enough

review by showhost march 2011
I have read two other ‘Roy Grace the detective novels’ and have enjoyed them, so when I saw this at the charity shop it went in my holiday read collection.
Three murders in Brighton which all become connected. Two which have the same theme running through them drawing the conclusion of a serial killer.
Brian Bishops wife is the first known victim. She is found dead in suspicious circumstances, a possible sex game gone wrong.
The second victim, a female, is also found in similar circumstances. One thing they both have in common is their carnal knowledge of Brian Bishop. He has alibi’s but his car has been caught on camera near the vicinity of both murders near the time of their deaths, and the alibi’s don’t exonerate him.
Brian Bishop is charged with the murder of his wife but things don’t quite add up for DI Roy Grace. Grace has another troubling problem, the possible sighting of his wife (who disappeared without trace 9 years ago) in Munich. This adds tension to his life as, although he wants to find his wife to find out what happened to her, he has also started on a new romance which he doesn’t want to jeopardize. But when his girlfriend, Cleo, the police mortician, is threatened and her car is blown up, Roy Grace starts to really feel the heat! The third victim was an ex colleague of DI Grace. She was dragged out of the sea and had been in the water a long time, her death seemingly unrelated to the other two.
It’s a well thought out story and you can half twig the ending but not quite.
I enjoyed it but towards the end I was skipping through the sometimes overwritten, unnecessary descriptions as I wanted him to get to the outcome. Some one said it reads a bit like a movie script and I see what they mean because the over-writing would be necessary to set the scene.
So for me this book was ‘not quite good enough’ and a tad slow inplaces.
Also, not sure about the wife references, why ?