Michael Harrison is on his stag night and 4 of his mates are playing a prank on him. This prank goes wrong and Detective Superintendent Roy Grace leads the hunt to find Michael who is now missing.But there is more to this tale than a missing person and a stag night prank. Dead Simple is a thriller about when things go wrong and efforts to fix things backfire. There are many twists and turns in this story with plenty of important details woven into the plot. It is set around Brighton and is an enjoyable tale where you do not know how it will pan out. It keeps the reader guessing. There is a good plot and motives are developed from actual true cases in the past when criminals have been brought to justice. It deals with jealousy and the hold women can have on men.Dead Simple is one in a series of Roy Grace novels. These books can be read as standalone novels because there is plenty of back story to make them work. They give a clear illustration of police culture, although it does seem that Peter James attended an open day at Sussex Police HQ taking loads of notes to use in his novels. He is very good at describing police procedures. There is some lovely dry humour between the characters. A good example is on page 47 when Roy Grace is being cross-examined in court...'So you regularly turn to the dark arts in your work as a senior police officer, do you, Detective Superintendent Grace?'An audible snigger rippled around the courtroom.'I wouldn't call it the dark arts,' Grace said. 'I would call it an alternative resource. The police have a duty to use everything at their disposal in trying to solve crimes.''So would it be fair to say you are a man of the occult? A believer of the supernatural?' the silk asked.Grace looked at Judge Driscoll, who was staring at him as if it was he himself who was now on trial in this court. Desperately trying to think of an appropriate response, he shot a glance at the jury, then the public gallery, before he faced the silk again. And suddenly it came to him.Grace's voice notched up a gear, more strident, more confident, suddenly. 'What is the first thing this court required me to do when I entered the witness stand?' he asked.Before the silk could respond, Grace answered for him. 'To swear on the Holy Bible.' He paused for it to sink in. 'God is a supernatural being - the supreme supernatural being. In a court that accepts witnesses taking an oath to a supernatural being, it would be strange if I and everyone else in this room did not believe in the supernatural.'...Dead Simple was written in 2005 and has 457 pages. This is a good book which entertains and is awfully British. I vote it 4 stars. The ending is rather far fetched but Peter James is a big fan of the paranormal.
Book 1 in the Roy Grace seriesMy first experience reading this author was a most exciting one, a fascinating rollercoaster ride that kept me riveted through the pages from the very first line. The book is a page turner in the best sense of the word, a kind of cat and mouse game from beginning to end. This is a well-crafted and structured story, essentially a police procedural featuring Detective Superintendent Roy Grace, a faintly flawed hero who has a penchant for the supernatural. With a heavy dash of suspense and just a soupcon of psychics this fast paced and good plot is full of unexpected twists and turns and is refreshingly free of swearing and bad language. This book is definitely plot driven.Told in the third person with short and catchy chapters, it opens giving you a chill down your back. Michael Harrison, in an outlandish bachelor party prank, is buried in a coffin on his stag night by his closest friends. On their way home, a horrific car crash kills the group that entombed him. Detective Roy Grace is called to investigate the bizarre circumstances of this disappearance. While following the most rigorously police procedures he also seeks assistance of mediums to help him find Michael before it is too late. Then the chase is on and as reader we are plunged into one of those cliff-hangers we rarely see. Roy is a great character, sympathetic and intuitive and it is easy to warn to, the rest of the cast are as varied as can be. Close to the end, there is a car chase that is inventive and so entertaining that I was disappointed reaching the final moment of this most gripping story. I am looking forward the next installment.
What do You think about Dead Simple (2006)?
I liked this book, I especially liked the central character - Roy Grace. Yes, he's got issues (but then who doesn't in crime novels), but he seems like a really nice guy who's had some bad things happen to him.Set in and around Brighton the premise if this book is very simple. A man (Michael Harrison) is buried alive on his stag night, by his friends, with only a bottle of whiskey, a porno mag and a walkie talkie. It's payback for the pranks he pulled on them when they got married. But 10 minute
—Charlotte (Buried in Books)
What starts out as a revenge prank suddenly turns into a thriller. That is the basis of Peter James’ first book in the series of Roy Grace, Dead Simple. The prank in this case is four friends of Michael Harrison locking him in a coffin during a drunken spree, which leads to the four friends being killed while Michael is in a coffin, days away from an uncertain death. Roy Grace is the detective who has to find Michael but what he doesn’t know is that the prank has led to more questions from Michael’s friends, leaving the reader to wonder if any of Michael’s friends are trustworthy. All this seems to make it even harder for Grace to figure out what happened to Michael. There are several things that make this book even more dynamic. Peter James writes from different points of view in the book, that being the criminals, the victim, and the police. By doing this, James fills the book with even more suspense since the characters drive the story, making me wonder what was going to happen next. Another great point of creating multiple points of view made the characters even more memorable because the characters are more developed. People might argue that the point of view switches too much but in this book, it’s still easy to follow since Dead Simple is more of a thriller than along with being a mystery. I have read books in multiple viewpoints. Some were done well. Others weren’t. In Dead Simple, it was a great part of the story. Some people on Kindle may feel differently about this, as well as Grace’s involvement with a Medium. That made the book better for me since I’m a big fan of the TV series, Medium, and other TV shows of that nature. I have to say that this was one of the best books I have read this year based on the unique type of plot and the multiple viewpoints, which in this case gave the story a tremendous amount of suspense. I wish I can give this book more than five stars.
—Ron Hummer
The premise is both ingenious and simple --- a group of friends out for a stag party to usher the groom-to-be decide to play a cruel joke on him. They bury their friend Michael in a shallow grave --- leaving a borrowed coffin equipped with a breathing tube as his temporary home for a few hours. They screw the lid shut and continue their pub crawl. Unfortunately, they all die in a drunken car accident and no one knows about poor Michael. Well, almost no one...Word of the missing groom case gets to Peter James' series protagonist, D.S. Roy Grace. Grace is a great character, both shrewd and unassuming. He quickly realizes there is more to the story then four dead young men and a missing groom. DEAD SIMPLE takes this story-line and runs with, going into dark territory and unexpected plot twists.A great read by a master of British crime!
—Ray Palen
