Not Dead Enough

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Peter James

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Pages: 400 (Paperback)

ISBN: 0330446126

Pub: Pan Books

Pub date: 2007-12-07

Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 228

Editorial Review:

Peter James came to many readers' attention via his immense success as a horror novelist, but his more recent career as a writer of effortlessly ingenious and readable crime novels has - perhaps unfairly -- eclipsed his earlier work. (The author has claimed that he was, in any case, always essentially a crime writer - even in the days of his earlier acclaim).
Not Dead Enough marks another welcome appearance for the author's quirkily characterised policeman Roy Grace (who we've already met in Dead Simple and Looking Good Dead). Here, Grace is investigating the bizarre slaying of a member of Brighton's social elite, Katie Bishop. Her husband, Brian, appears to be in the clear - he was in another town at the time, sound asleep. But Grace begins to suspect the presence of a doppelgänger: is someone else -- nigh-identical to Bishop - involved? As in his previous cases, Grace's diligent exhuming of murky secrets soon demonstrates that the Bishops' outwardly settled lives had darker corners. And as Grace gets close to the truth, he finds - paradoxically - that it's his own beleaguered private life which is on the line.
. With Not Dead Enough, we're soon reminded that Peter James' métier has long been machine-tooled plotting, and that particular skill doesn't desert him here. James himself spends time with the police of the Brighton area (his own beat) and that research is seamlessly freighted into the narrative here.

Readers are confronted with a dizzying variety of tales of murder and deception these days, but this one has an individual strand that marks it out from the crowd. --Barry Forshaw

Reader Reviews:

formulaic and two dimensional (0/0 people found this helpful)

This is the worst book I have read in the past five years. The plot crawls along predictably but unbelievably. The dialogue sounds unauthentic. The characters are wooden and stereotyped. There is gratuitous product placement throughout. Everyone's car and mobile phone is lovingly described. Crime fiction for idiots. Avoid at all costs.

Couldn't put it down (0/0 people found this helpful)

I have been reading thrillers and suspense novels since i was 10 years of age and i think that Peter James' books are some of the best that i've read. Of the Roy Grace series, this book in particular was one of those page turners that you read too quickly and easily.If you know the situation where you say to yourself that you'll put the book down at the end of a chapter, well, forget about it, because the end of each chapter makes you want to keep on reading. Hence, my only complaint is that i read it too quickly and was disappointed that it was finished. I'm a big fan of Roy Grace and all his colleagues. The author gets across a really good sense of what type of characters they are through his discriptions and narratives. It is a definate must for any reader of thrillers. I passed the books 'Looking Good Dead' and 'Not Dead Enough' on to my Dad, who is another avid reader of thrillers and he is now a big fan of Peter James.

Atmospheric (0/0 people found this helpful)

I enjoy Peter James' "Grace" series. Full of atmosphere and captures Brighton very well. I spotted the plot twist pretty early on but still found it entertaining.

Doesn't matter if you guess the twist (0/0 people found this helpful)

I was surprised some readers weren't wild about 'Not Dead Enough', the Brighton detective thriller. I liked the fact it seemed to focus more on
Detective Superintendent Roy Grace and was less preposterous than the previous book in the series,'Looking Good Dead'. One of the aspects I enjoy about the Roy Grace series is that as a Detective Superintendent, Grace isn't just a detective out and about doing his own thing. He is a complex man in charge of a substantial team and he has to think about their strengths and weaknesses. For me the most interesting part of a detective novel is the characterisation of the detective and his interaction with others and therefore although I guessed the main twist very early in the novel, it didn't matter because that part of the story isn't what kept me reading. Plus I wanted to read to discover how Grace and Cleo progressed (a favourite part, for me) and Glenn too. I'm off to read 'Dead Man's Footsteps', the next in the series.

Not Clever Enough (0/2 people found this helpful)

I was so dissappointed with this book. It started off well enough and I thought I was bound to enjoy it but less than half way through I had guessed where it was going. It might have been satisfying to read that I was right had it not taken so long to get to that point. In the end I gave up and turned to the last few chapters to confirm I was right. If you like obvious plots that take too long to reach a climax then this is the book for you- if not avoid it like the plague!

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