I discovered the Detective Grace series by accident. I took a book out of the library and it was not until I got home that I realised it was not PD James but Peter James. A tad annoyed but thought I would give it a go. Next day straight back to the library to get what else was there on the shelves and then onto Amazon to fill in the gaps.
This is a really excellent and well narrated series always with an exciting and thrilling ending which keeps you guessing to the last minute and this latest Dead Man's Time is no different. A vicious robbery takes place in which an elderly lady is tortured and left dying, her house stripped of valuable antiques and a watch of priceless sentimental value is taken. Her brother, a wealthy antique dealer, is not willing to allow the law to take its course but decides to search for vengeance on his own terms.
The story flits backwards and forwards between 1912 and the present day and the theft of this watch links the two. As a young boy Gavin Daly witness the brutal murder of his mother and the kidnapping of his father in New York, a victim of the rivalry between the gangs of that time. He and his sister are taken to
The investigation takes Roy Grace and his team to New York to track down not only the killer of Gavin Daly's sister, but also to try to prevent a final act of murder whose roots lie in the events that took place all those years ago. It is a simply stonking read, one of the author's best and when it arrived the other day I started it immediately and ended up bleary eyed at 1 am in the morning unable to go to sleep until I knew what happened.
Apart from the main crime and murder there is also a narrative thread running through all the books, touching on Grace's past and present personal life relating to the disappearance ten years ago of his wife Sandy, his fiance Cleo and their new baby son. There is also somebody who had a very nasty grudge against DS Grace who is determined to cause him harm, or Cleo or baby Noah......
I highly recommend this series but if you decide to read them, and I hope you do, then please do read them in order and you will get more out of them if you follow the personal along with the detective persona.
A week or so ago I was invited to be involved in the launch of this book which takes place in Brighton on 22 June, but sadly am unable to make it much to my chagrin as it sounds enormous fun and I love Brighton, having spend quite a lot of my childhood holidays there. There is to be a Peter James Secret Brighton Walk and floor stickers will be placed at key Brighton landmarks along the way.
This sounds tremendous fun and if you are interested in finding out more please go to http://www.peterjamesbrighton.com/ to download the Secret Brighton walk and visit www.panmacmillan.com/PJCodes for further information.
If you buy this title you will find that hyour are able to enter Peter James' Brighton through a new map and unlock secret material with the Blippar smartphone app and details are given inside on how to do this. If hyou don't have a smartphone or table, don't worry, you can access it with the link above on Peter James Brighton.
Times have certainly changed, once upon a time you got a bookmark if you were lucky, now you get an app............
