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Book reviews, interviews, and columns
Not Dead Enough is the third Roy Grace yarn to come of out Peter James’ fiendish mind, and is just as accomplished as its two chilling predecessors featuring the Brighton detective, assorted creepy miscreants, and an affectionately portrayed city of sin. James’ Sussex detective gets a bit more metrosexual with each new book, but that’s ok, he’s a modern UK bloke. With this densely woven tale – fastidiously researched criminology, flashes of the paranormal – James has raised his game. Indeed, parts of Not Dead Enough are so breathtakingly evocative that they recall Graham Greene’s 1938 masterpiece set in the same city, Brighton Rock. In particular, the chapter that introduces the character Skunk – a wretch whose life revolves entirely around get his hands on white (cocaine) or brown (heroin) – is pure Greeneland in terms of style and pacing. Grace is having a hard time of it again, three murder mysteries to solve, one weaselly suspect and no leads. And women trouble too, just to really do his head in – a foxy mortician girlfriend and a missing-person wife, who may or may not have just been spotted in Germany. When he heads off to Munich, the reader is drawn into an almost surreal episode, all the better to convey Grace’s bafflement and pain. When can one ever get any closure on a loved-one who we don’t even know is alive? The juxtaposition of profound themes against a thrilling pulp-fiction backdrop makes for irresistible page-turning.