Looking Good Dead (Roy Grace, #2) by Peter James
Synopsis /
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.
My Thoughts /
If he could have had the smallest inkling of the devastating impact it was going to have on his life, he would have left the damned thing on the seat.
What would you do if you found a nondescript CD left on an empty seat of the passenger train while you were on your way home from work? By all accounts, it looks harmless enough, sitting there all alone and unlabelled – probably won’t even have anything on it. But Tom Bryce’s curiosity got the better of him and he picked it up and took it home. You’ve all heard of the saying ‘Curiosity killed the cat’? Let me tell you, that once you’ve finished Looking Good Dead, you’ll never think twice about picking up stray or stranded items of ‘anything’, ever again. Oh, Tom. Tom. Tom. You should never have done that!!
That night after dinner and kids’ bedtime, Tom is putting in some time working in his home office. Curious about the contents of his mysterious find, Tom boots up his laptop and inserts the disc. It’s at this point where we are all shouting (in our minds) ‘Don’t do that Tom! Tom! Don’t. Do. That!’ Ah, too late. [Why doesn’t anyone listen to my mind’s inner warnings? Hahaha.] Playing nothing but a black screen at first, it takes a moment for Tom’s addled brain to register that there’s something actually playing on the screen. And when he does, he’s horrified. In short, it’s a video of a young girl being brutally murdered.
Back in his small, almost brand new office, in the huge, recently refurbished two-storey art deco building which had originally been built in the 1950s as a hospital for contagious diseases and which now housed the headquarters of Sussex CID, Grace sat down in his swivel chair. Like almost every item of furniture in the room it was almost fresh out of its box, and didn’t yet feel familiar or comfortable.
To him, each stack represented more than just a human life that had been taken – and a killer who was still free – it symbolized something very close to his own heart. It meant that a family had been unable to lay its past to rest because a mystery had never been solved, justice had never been done. And Sherlock Holmes. ‘When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.’
Detective Superintendent Roy Grace has been called to a field where a gruesome discovery has been made. A body. The victim, a young woman, has been found, dismembered. Those first to attend the scene have cordoned off the area but informed DS Grace that the young woman’s head cannot be accounted for. Grace and his team will have to work smart and hard to establish the identity of the victim, the identity of the perpetrator or, perpetrators, and also work to establish a motive. Grace knows he’ll be under intense pressure to solve this case – a case with seemingly no clues or any forensic evidence – apart from one, which they will need to hold back from the press.
I’m not in the business of raising hopes, I’m in the business of finding criminals.
Originally published in 2006, this well written police procedural has not aged one bit. DS Grace is a good detective. He manages his team with a firm hand, yet is also sympathetic and understanding. Each victim is someone’s missing person, and this affects him deeply. As we have learned, his own wife disappeared some nine years ago and since her disappearance, there has been absolutely no trace of her whereabouts or clues as to what may have happened to her.
James has written a superbly plotted thriller. The characters are developing and evolving with each story and we are getting a little more insight into Grace’s psyche.
Crime was no respecter of weekends.
The television series of the same name ‘Grace’, has modernised these books – so there are slight differences between the book and tv versions. Having seen the television version of this book, I have to say that I prefer the book version better. But then again, I always do.