I’ve read hundreds of criminal thrillers set in many parts of the world, yet I’ve somehow overlooked the UK’s best-selling crime thriller novelist, Peter James. To remedy this, I decided to read all of Peter James books in order.
Meet Detective Superintendent Roy Grace on his legendary first major case in this TV tie-in edition of Dead Simple, written by award-winning crime author Peter James.
Grace, a famous ITV series, was adapted for television by scriptwriter Russell Lewis and stars John Simm.
- 1. Dead Simple
- 2. Looking Good Dead
- 3. Not Dead Enough
- 4. Dead Man's Footsteps
- 5. Dead Tomorrow
- 6. Dead Like You
- 7. Dead Man's Grip
- 8. Not Dead Yet
- 9. Dead Man's Time
- 10. Want You Dead
- 11. You Are Dead
- 12. Love You Dead
- 13. Need You Dead
- 14. Dead If You Don't
- 15. Dead at First Sight
- 16. Find Them Dead
- 17. Left You Dead
- 18. Picture You Dead
- 19. Stop Them Dead
- 20. One of Us Is Dead
Peter James Roy Grace Books in Order
1. Dead Simple
It was supposed to be a harmless joke for a stag night. However, the groom vanishes and his buddies pass away a few hours later.
Roy Grace gets a call from the man’s upset fiancée three days before the wedding, asking her to find out what really transpired that fateful night.
The one person who should be aware of the groom’s whereabouts is remaining silent. However, he stands to benefit far more than anyone realises because one man’s misfortune can be another man’s bountiful opportunity.
2. Looking Good Dead
Roy Grace finds it impossible to ignore thoughts of his own lost wife and her unresolved destiny when he discovers a young woman’s body mutilated in Brighton.
When Tom Bryce discovers a CD left on a train somewhere in the city, he just wants to return it to its owner. However, he becomes the only person who saw that same brutal murder because of his tried act of charity.
The assassins must act after learning that Tom has given Grace’s squad a statement. However, their motivation for plotting the Bryce family’s murder is entertainment rather than merely retaliation.
3. Not Dead Enough
A stunning socialite has passed away. Though he was sixty miles away when Roy Grace passed away, her husband is the primary suspect and is implicated by all other evidence. Is he just a very good liar, or has someone stolen his identity?
Following a rumoured sighting of his wife Sandy, who has been missing for nine years, Grace’s research and his developing new romance are thrown off course. As his mental struggle – and the number of bodies – increases, Grace attempts desperately to shed light on the truth in both cases. Oh dear…
4. Dead Man’s Footsteps
In the midst of the horrific chaos on 9/11 morning, failing Brighton businessman and miser Ronnie Wilson spots an opportunity to turn his life around by paying off his debts, going missing, and starting over abroad.
After six years, the skeletal remains of a lady are found in a storm drain in Brighton. This discovery sends Roy Grace on a global search and into a desperate race against time to rescue the life of a woman who is being stalked like an animal through Brighton’s streets and alleys.
5. Dead Tomorrow
Missing crucial organs, the body of a missing youngster is excavated from the seabed off the coast of Sussex. Two more bodies are discovered shortly after that…
If a Brighton teen does not have an immediate transplant, she will die. Her mother takes desperate measures and goes to an internet broker in the black-market organs when the health system threatens to let her down. What she desires can be obtained from the broker, but at a cost.
Roy Grace discovers a network of child traffickers operating out of Eastern Europe while looking into the bodies that have been retrieved. A desperate mother will do anything to save her daughter’s life, and soon Grace and his crew will find themselves in a race against time to save the life of a small street child…
6. Dead Like You
Brighton’s Metropole Hotel. A woman gets attacked as she makes her way back to her hotel after a wild New Year’s Eve party. Another woman is beaten a week later. The criminal takes the shoes of both victims…
Roy Grace discovers quickly that there are striking parallels between these new incidents and a string of unsolved homicides that occurred in the city back in 1997. The assailant, known as “Shoe Man,” is thought to have assaulted five other women before killing his sixth victim and going missing. Is Shoe Man back? Or is this just a copycat?
Grace and his group are thrust into a deadly race against time to identify and save the life of the new sixth victim when other women are raped. Oh dear…
7. Dead Man’s Grip
Riding a bicycle, a university student is murdered in a horrible traffic accident. Grace is aware that Carly Chase, the third driver, might be the target of a vicious killer after two of the drivers get killed.
Solicitor Carly decides that hiding is not an option and travels to New York to talk to the mother of the rider. However, Grace is aware of the mother’s connections in the underground and that the family will do whatever it takes to get even.
8. Not Dead Yet
Grace is in charge of Gaia Lafayette’s protection because she needs to film a movie back home. However, Grace witnesses a nightmare when a nasty gangster is freed from prison and a headless body that cannot be identified is discovered.
Gaia is being pursued by an obsessed stalker, and Grace is aware that they could be out and about in his city, waiting, observing, plotting,…
9. Dead Man’s Time
An elderly resident of a remote Brighton home is left struggling for her life after a brutal robbery. Valuables worth millions of pounds have been pilfered.
In a matter of days, Grace finds himself in a race against time as he pursues a murderer motivated by the combined forces of two men’s wrath and greed, which takes him from the seedy world of English antiques to the streets of Europe and back to the 1922 gang fights on the New York waterfront.
10. Want You Dead
After going missing for ten years, Grace’s wife Sandy is finally pronounced dead, allowing him to wed his son’s mother. However, there’s a reason why Sandy vanished without explanation.
It bothers Bryce Laurent that his ex-girlfriend is moving on. Fearful of Bryce’s sinister side, she runs for police cover. However, Bryce is determined to ruin everything and everyone she has ever known and loved, including herself. She won’t be stopped.
11. You Are Dead
Numerous attractive young women with long brown hair have been targeted and kidnapped. Every victim has a brand that says “U R Dead” on their corpse when they are discovered. Furthermore, a portion of their remains date back thirty years.
After Logan Somerville is abducted while speaking with her fiancé, Grace needs to follow up on leads, link the cases, and discover the murderer before they carry out another attack.
12. Love You Dead
After being married, Grace, Cleo, and their infant boy moved into a rustic home in the country. However, the discovery of his first, long-missing wife has surprised Grace beyond his wildest expectations.
But Grace is needed by the police because a killer who escaped and returned with a bullet in him is back, and a Black Widow is trailing dead people throughout the globe after completely draining them of their last drop. She has now arrived in Brighton in search of her next wealthy prey…
13. Need You Dead
Desperate to get out of the horrible marriage, Lorna Belling succumbs to the allure of a man who offers her the world. However, as Lorna quickly discovers, things don’t always work out as planned.
Grace is notified when a woman’s body is discovered. It appears to be a straightforward case with a certain top suspect at first. That is, until Grace finds out that there’s a darker, much more horrifying option.
14. Dead If You Don’t
The prosperous businessman and obsessive gambler Kipp Brown is having his worst luck to date. If only for a few hours, taking his teenage son Mungo to a football game should have provided him with much-needed relief. Still, his nightmare starts in the stadium.
Shortly after arriving to the game, Mungo vanishes out of nowhere, and Kipp gets the horrifying news that someone is in possession of his child. Kipp will also have to pay to bring him back to life.
Roy Grace is called in to look into what appears to be a simple kidnapping case. However, Grace quickly discovers that nothing is as it seems and he is into the seedy, criminal underworld of the city.
15. Dead at First Sight
A man awaits the arrival of his true love at an airport in London. A retired police officer in Florida’s Key West is waiting for his first date with his soulmate in a pub across the Atlantic. The two guys are going to learn that neither woman exist and that they have been conned out of nearly every dime they own.
Roy Grace receives a call the same week to look into a woman’s apparent suicide in Brighton, although this is obviously not the case. A dashing motivational speaker approaches him as he continues his research. He has found out that eleven different ladies are being deceived online using his name. One of them called him and said, “You don’t know me, but I thought I knew you,” which is how he first learned about it.
Now that woman is gone.
Roy Grace understands he is only seeing the very beginning. Can he topple the deadly worldwide empire founded on cunning, vicious cyber scams?
16. Find Them Dead
After finishing his secondment with the Met Police in London, Roy Grace receives information on a drug lord based in Brighton. He gets called to what looks to be a senseless murder on his first day back at his former employment.
Grace’s inquiry eventually brings him within the deadly grip of a drug dealer who is on trial for extreme brutality. A man willing to give the death penalty to anyone in order to avoid appearing in court.
Meg Magellan is a juror whose kid is in danger of dying because of a stranger who assures her that there is a very easy way to see her alive again. All she needs to do at the conclusion of the trial is ensure that the jury returns the verdict of “not guilty.”
17. Left You Dead
Like every Sunday, Niall and Eden Paternoster begin their day with a long drive, a trip to a country residence, and a quick stop at the neighbourhood grocery store before heading home.
However, the way this Sunday ends is different because, despite Niall’s persistent waiting in the parking lot for Eden to pick up supplies, Eden never shows up. She’s not waiting for him at home, and she hasn’t communicated with any of their acquaintances or relatives.
Niall disappears without a trace and is detained on suspicion of killing her. It doesn’t take long for DS Roy Grace to realise that nothing about this case is quite as it seems when he is called in to investigate…
18. Picture You Dead
An regular couple named Harry and Freya had spent years dreaming of discovering something valuable hidden among the junk at a car boot sale.
They had a deep-seated belief that their ideal would never materialise, but one day it did.
For twenty pounds, they purchase a dull portrait in an exquisite frame, with the intention of removing the painting. When examining it at home, there appears to be an additional image underneath that shows a breathtaking environment. Might it be a long-lost 1770 masterwork? It might be worth millions if it’s real.
One collector is positive it’s authentic. Someone who will stop at nothing to achieve his goals.
Roy Grace, the detective superintendent, is thrust into the strange and exclusive realm of fine art. It seems dignified, gentlemanly, and above reproach from the outside. But under the surface, he quickly discovers that violence, deceit, and greed go hand in hand. And it’s going to happen that Harry and Freya realise their fantasy is becoming their greatest nightmare…
19. Stop Them Dead
A farmer confronts break-in suspects in the dark of night, not realising that the encounter will end in his death. The truth of what the criminals were willing to kill for is even more terrifying.
When DS Roy Grace arrives on the scene, he gets the impression that this is not just a poorly executed robbery, but perhaps the beginning of a national crime wave. Tough gangs, functioning with military efficiency, have uncovered a brand-new illicit industry thriving behind closed doors—an unbelievable revenue stream that surpasses even narcotics profits.
Because murder occurs where there is greed, Grace’s research into this lethal trade puts him up against assassins who will kill anyone who stands in their way.
20. One of Us Is Dead
James Taylor had to stand at the back of the little church when he shows up late for a funeral. But as the service goes on, Taylor becomes aware of a man sitting six seats ahead of him. Initially, Taylor believes he must be mistaken, but the longer he observes the man, the more he grows to believe that this is Rufus Rorke, an old school friend.
But he couldn’t be the culprit, could he? because Taylor was present at the funeral of Rufus Rorke two years ago. He even gave the eulogy for Rufus.
Detective Superintendent Roy Grace at Police HQ, on the other side of Brighton, is plagued by unanswered questions regarding many strange deaths. However, how are they related? And how on earth are they related to Rufus Rorke?
Roy Grace is going to discover the true threat of a deceased individual.
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