Pre-Production: The novels

Below is a list of all the Roy Grace novels (so far) by Peter James and a brief synopsis from the Peter James website.



Dead Simple:

It was meant to be a harmless stag night prank. A few hours later four of his best friends are dead and Michael Harrison has disappeared. With only three days to the wedding, Detective Superintendent Grace - a man haunted by the shadow of his own missing wife - is contacted by Michael's beautiful, distraught fiancée, Ashley Harper. Grace discovers that the one man who ought to know Michael Harrison's whereabouts is saying nothing. But then he has a lot to gain - more than anyone realizes. For one man's disaster is another man's fortune...Dead simple...

Looking Good Dead:

Tom Bryce did what any decent person would do. But within hours of picking up the CD that had been left behind on the train seat next to him, and attempting to return it to its owner, he is the sole witness to a vicious murder. Then his young family are threatened with their lives if he goes to the police. But supported by his wife, Kellie, he bravely makes a statement, to the murder enquiry team headed by Detective Superintendent Roy Grace, a man with demons of his own to contend with.

Not Dead Enough:

On the night Brian Bishop murdered his wife, he was sixty miles away, asleep in bed at the time. At least, that's the way it looks to Detective Superintendent Roy Grace who is called in to investigate the kinky slaying of beautiful young Brighton socialite, Katie Bishop. Soon, Grace starts coming to the conclusion that Bishop has performed the apparently impossible feat of being in two places at once. Has someone stolen his identity, or is he simply a very clever liar? As Grace digs deeper behind the facade of the Bishops' outwardly respectable lives, it starts to become clear that all is not at all as it first seemed. And then he digs just a little too far, and suddenly the fragile stability of his own troubled, private world is facing destruction. ..

Dead Man's Footsteps:

"Abby stepped in the lift and the doors closed with a sound like a shovel smoothing gravel. She breathed in the smell of someone else's perfume, and lemon-scented cleaning fluid. The lift jerked upwards a few inches. And now, too late to change her mind and get out, with the metal walls pressing in around her, they lunged sharply downwards. Abby was about to realize she had just made the worst mistake of her life ..."
Amid the tragic unfolding mayhem of the morning of 911, failed Brighton never-do-well Ronnie Wilson sees the chance of a lifetime, to disappear and reinvent himself in another country. Five years later the discovery of the skeletal remains of a woman's body in a storm drain in Brighton, leads Detective Superintendent Roy Grace on an enquiry spanning the globe, and into a desperate race against time to save the life of a woman being hunted down like an animal in the streets and alleys of Brighton.

Dead Tomorrow:

“ Lynn gripped the sides of the armchair, trying to put aside her own inner terror. 'I can't believe I'm thinking this, Ross. I'm not a violent person, even before Caitlin's influence, I never even liked killing flies in my kitchen. Now I'm sitting here actually willing some stranger to die'. ”
The body of a teenager, dredged from the seabed off the coast of Sussex, is found to be missing its vital organs. Soon two more young bodies are found...
Caitlin Beckett, a fifteen-year-old in Brighton, will die if she does not receive a liver transplant, urgently. When the health system threatens to let her down, Lynn, her mother turns in panic to the internet and discovers a broker who can provide her with a black-market organ - but at a price. Prepared to do whatever it takes, Lynn scrambles to raise the money. A few days later, with Caitlin deteriorating by the hour, the organ broker tells Lynn she has found a perfect match.
With his beautiful girlfriend, Cleo, and his recent promotion, Detective Superintendent Roy Grace knows he should finally be feeling positive for the first time since his wife Sandy disappeared, nine years ago. But this new case haunts him, even more than all the others. Following the clues from the bodies, he finds himself on the trail of a gang of child traffickers operating from Eastern Europe. Soon Grace and his team will find themselves in a race against time to save the life of a young street kid, while a desperate mother will stop at nothing to save her daughter's life.

Dead Like You:

“ Don't imagine for one moment that I'm not watching you ... ”
The Metropole Hotel, Brighton. After a heady New Year’s Eve ball, a woman is brutally raped as she returns to her room. A week later, another woman is attacked. Both victims’ shoes are taken by the offender ...
Detective Superintendent Roy Grace soon realises that these new cases bear remarkable similarities to an unsolved series of crimes in the city back in 1997. The perpetrator had been dubbed ‘Shoe Man’ and was believed to have raped five women before murdering his sixth victim and vanishing. Could this be a copycat, or has Shoe Man resurfaced?
When more women are assaulted, Grace becomes increasingly certain that they are dealing with the same man. And that by delving back into the past - a time in which we see Grace and his missing wife Sandy still apparently happy together - he may find the key to unlocking the current mystery. Soon Grace and his team will find themselves in a desperate race against the clock to identify and save the life of the new sixth victim ...

Dead Man's Grip:

“ I want them to suffer, and I want them dead ... ”
Carly Chase is traumatised ten days after being in a fatal traffic accident which kills a teenage student from Brighton University. Then she receives news that turns her entire world into a living nightmare.The drivers of the other two vehicles involved have been found tortured and murdered. Now Detective Superintendant Roy Grace of the Sussex Police force issues a stark and urgent warning to Carly: She could be next.The student had deadly connections. Connections that stretch across the Atlantic. Someone has sworn revenge and won't rest until the final person involved in that fatal accident is dead.
The police advise Carly her only option is to go into hiding and change identity. The terrified woman disagrees - she knows these people have ways of hunting you down anywhere. If the police are unable to stop them, she has to find a way to do it herself. But already the killer is one step ahead of her, watching, waiting, and ready ...