MadProfessah's Reviews > Not Dead Enough: A Roy Grace Novel 3

Not Dead Enough is the third book in the long-running and best-selling Detective Superintendent Roy Grace series written by Peter James set in Brighton and Hove. These books are British police procedural novels in the mystery, crime, suspense, thriller and detective genres. After reading the first three books I have a growing admiration for the superior quality of the series. In the first three books, we have been exposed to three very different but compelling stories which DSI Grace has successfully solved. Happily, these are not simplistic portrayals of our hero cracking the case on their own, figuring out things that have stumped everyone else, but depictions of collaborative teams of investigators working together to try and bring perpetrators of horrible and horrific crimes to justice.

In addition to Grace, other interesting characters we spend a fair amount of time with include DS Glenn Branson (Grace’s best mate who is going through some marital trouble in Not Dead Enough and so the two are currently temporarily living together!), Cleo Morey (Grace’s new love interest) and a number of other police officers who are on Grace’s team (such as his frightful superior, the boorish DS Potting, the up-and-coming DC Nichols, etc).

The central mystery in Not Dead Enough is pretty interesting and intriguing. The wife (and mistress) of a successful local business owner named Brian Bishop are both found dead, naked, raped and garroted with World War 2-era gas masks on their faces within days of each other. It takes awhile for the police to even realize that Brian is related to both deaths, primarily because even though he is the main suspect when his wife Katie’s body is found (it’s always the husband!), he doesn’t appear to be lying when he adamantly denied knowing his mistress Holly and repeatedly claimed he loved his wife. And he has a pretty strong alibi since he was having dinner in London right before his wife was being murdered in Brighton. Similarly, although there’s an eyewitness saying they saw someone matching Brian’s description the afternoon before Holly’s body was found, Brian was being closely watched by Brighton police in that time period. So, police need to find someone who looks like (and somehow has easy access to significant quantities of Brian’s DNA.) James does a good job of providing interesting twists on the expected solution to this mystery.

Another thing the author does so well in Not Dead Enough (and the other books in the series so far) is to strategically provide the reader with information about the motivations of multiple characters (even the perpetrator!) This works frighteningly well when the characters we care about are placed in imminent danger and the suspense ratchets up to pulse-pounding levels. (Happily this time the source of suspense is entirely sourced not in the mortal danger to our main character. Overuse of this plot device is an annoying pet peeve of mine; far too many authors use it too often as a cheap means to engage readers in the story.)

Overall, Not Dead Enough is another excellent entry in the DSI Roy Grace series. We get advances in the lifestories of many of the main characters and they solve an exciting and puzzling mystery. This series is definitely on my list to follow to its conclusion.