Find them dead by Peter James is another great story in the Roy Grace series.
Roy Grace is back from his secondment from the Met. He is involved in a case where a Stu Starr 38-year-old Down syndrome male was murdered in his own home. While his brother has been arrested for smuggling Class A drugs in a classic Ferrari into the country from Germany.
The main story is a Courtroom drama where Terence Gready a bent Solicitor and part-time drug smuggler is the organiser of drugs being imported into the country. He puts on a face with is wife to be an upstanding member of the local society but, behind closed doors he is a devious criminal he thinks that he is going to be let off as he is blackmailing one of the jury.
We also discover more of Grace’s home life with his wife Chloe and her pregnancy and his creepy son and the continuing conflict with colleague Cassian Pewe.
Although this book is mostly centred around a courtroom drama and not much about Roy Grace, This was another highly entertaining read, great characters and plot and a surprising ending 5 stars from me.

Another great book in the Roy Grace series.
Grace wasn’t in this one as much as others as it centred around a court case but we still got some insight into his life with Cleo, Noah and Bruno. The tensions with Cassian Pewe are well and truly bubbling and by the sounds of it the next book will bring some karma to the ACC - fingers crossed!
In this book a drug import operation gets stopped coming into dock and Mickey Starr is arrested as he was driving the car that contained the drugs.
The operation also links to Terence Gready who is a solicitor and he’s the one whose trial we follow.
We get to know one if the jurors in particular, and that’s Meg, as she received a threatening phone call at the beginning of the trial which makes her life hell.
This is yet another five star read in this series and if you’ve not read any of these books, I can highly recommend them.
Thanks to Pan MacMillan and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book.

I have read all the Roy Grace series and this did not feel the same at all to me.. It was still extremely well written and researched but I think because it was really solely centred on a court case, that didn’t really involve Grace it felt very disjointed to me. I was waiting every chapter for Roy to suddenly become the focus and for at least 80% of the time he didn’t. I felt the murder of Stevi and the subsequent investigation was really underwritten at the expense of too much detail on the court case. Which while I am sure was extremely accurate I found the depth described by the witnesses bogged the story a bit for me, to the point where I started to skip some paragraphs.
I felt the teasers for a development in the Pewe future storyline was an excellent teaser though.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for allowing me to read a preview copy of this book.

You can always rely on Peter James to produce a well thought out story, well researched and well written. Maybe not quite as gripping as some fo his other books but nevertheless well worth a read.

Another great DI Grace novel from Peter James! It features all the hallmarks that we have grown to love - the multiple viewpoints, the seat of your pants action as well as the slow burning story of the main enduring characters. But what is brilliant with Find Them Dead is that the storyline is centred around a court case rather than a major investigation. This is a big departure for Peter James and the police characters themselves but it really works. Not least because you get to understand the inner workings of a drugs trial from the mind of one of the jurors. The level of detail really demonstrates how challenging it must be in that situation.

What is also great, especially with this installment, is that you don't need to have read the whole series in order. You can pick this one up, enjoy a brilliant read and then go back to the start.

So pleased to have had the opportunity to review this latest book by Peter James.
This is quite a different read from the other Peter James books,being a court room drama,where Roy Grace does not take part. Perhaps I missed much of his usual police work as he was not included in any of the court scenes etc.
The story revolves around Meg who has spent the last five years coming to terms with the loss of her husband and son killed in an accident.She has her daughter Laura who is eighteen and is travelling abroad with a friend.Meg has been selected for Jury service and has received a message to say she must sway the Jury to a not guilty verdict and that her daughters life depends on it.

Looking forward to the next read ,perhaps it will be the downfall of Cassian Pewe ,lets hope so!!!

Roy Grace is back in Brighton after his secondment to the Met and is soon investigating a murder after a body is found kicked to death,but is all what it seems ? In this latest instalment of this excellent series Grace doesn't feature that much but the usual characters are here Cleo,Bruno,Branson,Potting and his boss Cassian Pewe who Grace could gladly murder ! The story centres round the trial of drugs kingpin Terence Gready and the fact that Meg who is on the jury is being threatened along with her daughter Laura who is on a gap year holiday in South America but who is been followed everywhere by the sinister gang who will seemingly stop at nothing to get a not guilty verdict in the trial.Meg becomes more and more frantic as the trial progresses and the tension is built up in Peter James style as the verdict is read out in court.As with all the books in this series you get to know a bit more of Roy Grace and all the usual characters and i for one don't tire of reading about Roy Grace.An excellent addition to the series and i look forward to the next instalment..A masterful 5 star read.

Another great book from Peter James. Here we catch up with Detective Roy Grace again and his family.

This is different to many other of the Roy Grace books in that it focuses much more heavily on the court case that isn’t his case rather than the detective work that is usually more of a feature. This is due to the nature of the court case taking a long time and the witnesses in the case. While this was enjoyable, I like those types of books as well, it didn’t feel like the normal Roy Grace stories, Grace isn’t in the book very much at all although we do hear about his ongoing issues with Cassian Pewe and a hint that this will lead to more in the next book (I really hope so too!) this made the book less action-packed than normal.

While Grace is on secondment to the Met’s Violent Crime Task Force aiming to address the issues of knife crime and doing a sterling job with it, a major drugs ring is in operation. Following a tip-off, Mickey (also known as Lucky) gets caught bringing a fake Ferrari into the country filled with £6million worth of drugs. On returning from his secondment Grace is pulled into the investigation of a murder believed to be linked to the imported drugs and the ongoing trial of the drug lord, Terry Gready.

As always, this has a great plot. It keeps you entertained throughout and there are twists and turns so you don’t know exactly what is going to happen next. There is some great, high-level tech which helps with the jury nobbling but as mentioned above this book lacks some of the action seen in the other books, it's less dramatic and fast-paced as some of the other books in the series.

The characters are well developed, the Brighton and Sussex team are a continuation of the characters we have come to know through the other books, and there is a fairly considerable time spent on setting out the new characters.

This was a great read but with a slightly different premise to normal and a slightly slower pace as well.

Overall a very entertaining read. I liked how it delved into how easy it could be to nobble a jury member, however for me the usual action from Roy Grace seemed to be missing. Over all a great storyline.

I haven’t read a Roy Grace novel for a while so it’s a pleasure to return to the Brighton area and the Sussex team. All the usual characters are here, sadly including ACC Cassian Pewe and I look forward to the day that slimy toad gets what he’s overdue. In this one, a major drugs ring is operating in the region and the mastermind is masquerading behind the deceptive curtain of a respectable profession. Behind the mild and agreeable appearance there lies a ruthless, highly organised and dangerous individual. The case involves murder, threats and intimidation in order that Mr Big can elude the consequences of his many crimes. A considerable portion of the book is devoted to the subsequent court case.

The book starts in a very exciting way with an arrest and car chase which feels like an action movie. At this point Roy Grace is seconded to the Met’s Violent Crime Task Force aiming to address rising gang related knife crime in the capital. I think this section is also very good and extremely relevant and I would have loved more on this as it’s so pertinent. I really like the Sussex based characters (with one previously mentioned exception) and because so many of them have been in the series from the start they feel very realistic and clearly visible to the reader. I like the banter and touches of humour between them which also adds realism. The book is well written, it’s easy to read and flows well with the first half being well paced and keeps you intrigued.

Although there is a lot to praise in the book there are some overlong descriptions which seem at times to be “padding “. The trial section is overlong in my opinion and I had not expected this to be the primary focus and some interest is lost. No surprise to find that one expert witness gave evidence about gait analysis which the author seems overly fond of!!!! The ending of the court case is certainly dramatic and makes for good reading even if you question its plausibility!

Overall, I did enjoy a considerable portion of the book and I daresay that spending a long time in court is the reality of the role of a police officer. I’m looking forward to the next instalment where I sincerely hope Roy Grace enacts some well deserved revenge!

With thanks to NetGalley and Pan MacMillan for the ARC.

Find Them Dead is Peter James’ 16th Roy Grace novel and for those who love this series you will love this just as much. In a change from the normal police procedural theme Peter James has moved to the secret world of crown courts. Meg Magellan has spent the past five years learning to live her life without her husband and son, killed tragically, leaving Meg alone with her daughter Laura. The two women are everything to each other but now Laura is eighteen leaving to go travelling before she heads off to university. As excited as Laura is over her travels, Meg is anxious and unsure despite the fact Laura is travelling with her best friend Cassie, as they’ve hardly spent any time apart in the five years since the accident. Meg and her husband Nick both worked for the same company but now Meg has taken redundancy and is looking to start a new life. Meanwhile we catch up with Roy Grace finishing off his secondment to the Met and pleased to be returning to Sussex and his family. D I Glenn Branson is heading up a team of his own who are bringing down a major drug dealer and preparing for the court trial of Terence Gready, a local defence solicitor, purported to be the major king pin behind the huge drugs haul discovered in a luxury classic car. Whilst Glenn is leading a team Roy returns to find himself straight into the murder of a young adult with Down’s syndrome, Stuie Starr, who just happens to be the brother of Michael Starr, the unfortunate driver of the drug filled Ferrari. If that wasn’t complicated enough, Meg Magellan finds herself on jury duty, selected randomly to be part of the jury team in the prosecution of Terence Gready.
Once again Peter James has written a gripping novel that had me hooked from the first chapter. Despite our beloved Roy taking a quieter role in this novel, the story was as thrilling as expected with the court case adding a rollercoaster of emotions that left me holding my breath waiting for the foreperson to read the verdict. Roll on book seventeen.

Thank you to NetGalley and Pan Macmillan for the arc of Find Them Dead by Peter James.

Thank you to Peter James for writing this book.

This follows Mickey also known as Lucky, he has a brother whom in which has downs syndrome, in which he has been determined and pledged to look after him. But.... the book don't start with this it starts with him bringing a big supply of Class A drugs hidden in a fake Ferrari... he then ends up getting caught then his boss ends up getting caught then they both go on trial..

As well as this Meg is taking a redundancy as she see's her daughter Laura who is going on all around the world trip with her best friend. Meg has a very sad past due to bereavements but while her daughter is on her trip she is required to do Jury service work.

While the Jury arrives someone is filming and trying to persuade them to return to a not guilty verdict.

I loved this book, this was a thrilling and great book, i loved all the twists and turns and how it progressed from start to finish, This was written brilliantly and with a great sense of purpose I love this so thank you Peter James.

Definitely Recommend
5 Stars⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I would like to thank Netgalley and Pan Macmillan for an advance copy of Find Them Dead, the sixteenth novel to feature Brighton based Detective Superintendent Roy Grace.

Roy Grace is back in Brighton after a secondment to the Met. He immediately gets caught up in a murder investigation which, he thinks, may have links to the current trial of drug lord, Terry Gready. At the same time juror, Meg Magellan, is receiving threats in the form of photographs of her daughter taking a gap year in Ecuador.

I enjoyed Find Them Dead but it’s not my favourite Roy Grace novel, chiefly because it centres on the court room rather than Grace’s investigation and I do love a good police procedural. The novel is fairly slow to ignite as it, necessarily, involves a certain amount of scene setting to establish the characters, their relationships and their motivations. It’s a bit distracting with all the perspective changes and different voices but ultimately worth it as the reader is fully armed when the action starts. The narrative also narrows, settling, in the main, on Roy Grace, Meg Magellan and court proceedings with the odd interjection from other characters as required. In a sense this is a “be careful what you wish for” novel as I always think it would be nice to know the perpetrator gets their just desserts at the end of a novel but when I get it in this novel I find that justice is quite boring. Fortunately for the reader it is all analysed through Meg’s looking for reasons to acquit lens and it suddenly becomes more interesting and the tension of her position is excruciating at times. It’s well done.

Roy Grace doesn’t make much of an appearance in this novel. The trial is not his case and his murder investigation doesn’t get very far so his main preoccupation is the duplicity of his boss, Cassian Pewe who seems to be a bit of a Teflon don. There are hints that this may change in future novels but who knows?

Find Them Dead is a good read that I have no hesitation in recommending.

Thanks to Net Galley, Pan McMillan, and McMillan UK, for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
At the risk of being called a heretic, but I have struggled with the last few Grace novels, as they have lacked in their usual lustre. 'Find Them Dead' (love the title) is emphatic evidence of a return to form. Welcome back Peter James. This book has it all: crooks, drug dealers, 'Mr Big' and several attempts to nobble the jury in a trial.

This is a bit of different from the usual Roy Grace novels as the majority is focused in the court room. As such it reads more like a legal thriller than the usual Police procedural novel. To the extent that Roy Grace and his team barely featured in the book. Seemed to be very little investigating occurring, most of the Roy Grace bit seemed to be more about office politics in the Police force, and his family life.
Having said all that the courtroom drama was very well done giving the reader a very good look at how jury trials work in the UK. (I can vouch for this having done jury service a few years ago). The court case is told from the perspective of a juror being nobbled, as a legal thriller, I felt the suspense was excellent.
As for the last chapters cliff hanger. ‘I’m writing because I have something of interest about our mutual friend. No names mentioned because all these letters are read, but I know you were interested in doing something with that park bench.’ I can’t wait till next year now.

Thanks to NetGalley and The Publisher for this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I'm a big fan of Peter James' Roy Grace series and always look forward to reading the next book in the series. This book was enjoyable and well written and for the most part tension building and gripping as usual, but was a but of a departure from the police procedural that i'm use from this series. This one was mostly set in the court room following the trail of a suspected big time drug lord. And that wasn't even Roy's case.

I was disappointed that a lot of avenues were left unexplored and rushed over in my opinion - Roy's time with the Met and the witness interference and an old nemesis (Don't want to spoil it!)

Not my favourite, Bur still looking forward to the next.

Another brilliant book by one of my favourite authors. Well written as all the rest. Keeps you guessing from page one. If you can only read one book this year make it this one.

I am a huge fan of Peter James and his Roy Grace detective series set around Brighton.
I had felt maybe they had gone off the boil with some extreme plots recently but in this one we're right back on track with a cracking paced double dealing situation where a jury is being nobbled by a rough and seemingly respectable lawyer who's accused of being the head honcho for a millionaire lifestyle in drug dealing.
James's short chapters always cut through the periphery straight to the substance of the story. Characters are expertly established (particularly liked the dodgy solicitor Terence Gready!) and the settings around Brighton and Sussex where I live always engage me into the landscape for the plot.
The personal life of Roy Grace has at times had a rocky road and there are still bumps for the detective (soon to be played by John Simm in a forthcoming TV series which we fans are SO looking forward to seeing) His fellow officers have also formed as part of a team we all know and the start where Grace has been seconded to the Met Police seemed to hint at a breaking up of the old team. But fear not when murder strikes and links up the criminal drug dealer to his scheme to try and bribe and threaten jurors Grace will be back at the front of the queue and in court to enable justice to be done.
Often crime series do run their course but I as an avid reader felt a renewed love of Roy Grace and the style in which Peter James has secured himself rightly at the top of the best selling list for his books and amongst countless fans. I also love to see the author placing his own interests into the plot so look out for a detailed love of classic cars and lovely dogs!

The biggest shipment of cocaine into Sussex ever, arrives at Newhaven hidden in the bodywork of a classic car. Glenn Branson is heading up the investigation as Roy Grace is temporarily serving as Acting commander of the Police Violent Crime Task Force in SE London, and on his return to Sussex, still wrapped up in bringing the notorious Dr Edward Crisp to justice. His acid relationship with his immediate boss, Cassian Pewe is still festering; higher bosses remain appreciative of his performance however – so you sense things are drawing towards a head, hopefully pretty soon.

The story is largely court-based. Jury nobbling, murder, double dealing and treachery are all featured. It’s lightly entertaining, not particularly gritty and I found the ending a bit too simplistic. I found the description of a character with Down Syndrome to be (unintentionally) patronising and at times, cloyingly cringey, as was the repeated use of a phrase on a tee shirt which the author obviously found amusing. (Used once, it is).

I wanted to know more about Bruno; is he going to turn into the next ‘Villanelle’? Hints at his behaviour were too few and far between, making this feel simply like a ‘filler’ book. And what is wrong with Humphrey? – You can’t leave us hanging! I didn’t find the usual good balance between home and work in this volume. I think my disappointment was that I didn’t feel like Roy had achieved anything special in this one.

Intense and suspenseful as the pressure mounts on a juror to bring in a not guilty verdict under duress. She must tell no one or her daughter dies. If you’re a fan of Peter James this will not let you down. Great book.
ARC copy

The Roy Grace series is one of my favourites and this one doesn’t disappoint! This one has a fresh feel as Peter James delves into an area he hasn’t done before......I don’t want to give too much away! Ultimately, make time to read this when you can!