Find Them Dead (Roy Grace #16) by Peter James
Roy Grace, creation of the award-winning author Peter James, unearths a powerful criminal network in Find Them Dead.
A Brighton gangster is on trial for conspiracy to murder, following the death of a rival crime family boss. As the jury file into Lewes Crown Court, twelve anonymous people selected randomly from fifty, there is one person sitting in the public gallery observing them with keen interest, and secretly filming them. Later, a group of the accused’s henchmen sit around a table with the full personal details of each of the twelve jurors in front of them. They need to influence two of them – a jury can convict if directed on a 10-2 majority verdict but no less. But which two?
When Roy Grace is called in to investigate a murder that has links to the accused and the trial, and the suspicion that an attempt has been made to intimidate jurors, he finds the reach and power of the accused’s tentacles go higher than he had ever imagined.
Published 12 May 2020 | Publisher: Pan MacMillan Australia | RRP: AUD$32.99
Buy it at: Dymocks | Booktopia | A&R | Abbey’s | QBD
My Blurb (3.5 / 5 stars)
I received this book as an unsolicited review copy. While I’m familiar with the author’s name, I’ve not read any of his books. I was sort of excited to try as I do love my crime novels until… I found out that this book is 16th(!!) in a series. I’m not keen to read a book in the middle of a series but thought I’m going to break out of my mould and read out of sequence!! To be fair, I did listen to books 2 & 3 (all I could managed) before reading this 16th book.
Soooo, could you read this without having read previous books? I’m leaning towards yes because even as you miss a lot (and I do mean Heaps!) of backstories, serial crime novels would usually stand alone. I wouldn’t really recommend reading it out of sequence though as I do wonder at certain things Roy Grace is facing and how that came about. However, this isn’t actually a huge part of the book. And that’s another thing, this book is nearly double the size of the first few in the series…??!!
I found the book to be slightly off from my expectation of a serial police procedural crime novels. The first being that about 80% of the book reads like a legal thriller and in addition to that, Roy Grace and his team barely featured in that part of the book. It nearly felt like reading 2 separate books?! The second thing I thought a bit weird was that I didn’t feel like there was much investigating happening; barely any action from the policing team. And this linked back to my first issue about the book being a legal thriller than a police procedural I expected it to be.
From the legal thriller part of the book, the story is told from the perspective of a juror being nobbled. As legal thrillers go (I went through a John Grisham phase years ago), I thought the suspense was excellent. Hence, my more positive rating of the book even as I wondered whether the series fan will love it or not. For now, I’m happy to leave off the series but who knows, maybe I’ll pick one up one day just because…
Thanks to Pan MacMillan Australia for copy of book in exchange of honest review
About the author
Peter James is a UK number one bestselling author, best known for writing crime and thriller novels, and the creator of the much-loved Detective Superintendent Roy Grace. Globally, his books have been translated into thirty-seven languages.
Synonymous with plot-twisting page-turners, Peter has garnered an army of loyal fans throughout his storytelling career – which also included stints writing for TV and producing films. He has won over forty awards for his work, including the WHSmith Best Crime Author of All Time Award, Crime Writers’ Association Diamond Dagger and a BAFTA nomination for The Merchant of Venice starring Al Pacino and Jeremy Irons for which he was an Executive Producer. Many of Peter’s novels have been adapted for film, TV and stage.
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Tien's Blurb 