Dead Man's Grip (Roy Grace Series #7)

by Peter James

Overview

It's a race against time as Detective Superintendent Roy Grace tries to stop a grieving mother from taking the law into her own hands in Dead Man's Grip, by award winning crime writer Peter James.

A university student is killed in a tragic traffic accident while riding their bicycle. When two of the drivers involved are hunted down by a sadistic killer, Grace knows that the third driver, Carly Chase, may be next.

Carly, a solicitor, believes hiding is not an option and heads to New York to speak with the cyclist’s mother. But Grace knows about the mother’s underworld connections and that the family will stop at nothing to take an eye for an eye . . .

Although the Roy Grace novels can be read in any order, Dead Man's Grip is the seventh thrilling title in the bestselling series. Enjoy more of the Brighton detective’s investigations with Not Dead Yet and Dead Man's Time.

Now a major ITV series, Grace, starring John Simm.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780230760516
Publisher:	Pan Macmillan
Publication date:	05/26/2011
Series:	Roy Grace Series , #7
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	544
Sales rank:	58,574
File size:	1 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Peter James is a UK number one bestselling author, best known for writing crime and thriller novels, and the creator of the much-loved Detective Superintendent Roy Grace. Globally, his books have been translated into thirty-seven languages.

Synonymous with plot-twisting page-turners, Peter has garnered an army of loyal fans throughout his storytelling career – which also included stints writing for TV and producing films. He has won over forty awards for his work, including the WHSmith Best Crime Author of All Time Award, Crime Writers' Association Diamond Dagger and a BAFTA nomination for The Merchant of Venice starring Al Pacino and Jeremy Irons for which he was an Executive Producer. Many of Peter’s novels have been adapted for film, TV and stage.

Peter James is a UK No.1 bestselling author, best known for his Detective Superintendent Roy Grace series, now a hit ITV drama starring John Simm as the troubled Brighton copper.

Much loved by crime and thriller fans for his fast-paced page-turners full of unexpected plot twists, sinister characters, and accurate portrayal of modern day policing, he has won over 40 awards for his work including the WHSmith Best Crime Author of All Time Award and Crime Writers’ Association Diamond Dagger.

To date, Peter has written an impressive total of 19 Sunday Times No. 1s, sold over 21 million copies worldwide and been translated into 38 languages. His books are also often adapted for the stage – the most recent being Looking Good Dead.

Read an Excerpt

Dead Man's Grip

1

On the morning of the accident, Carly had forgotten to set the alarm and overslept. She woke with a bad hangover, a damp dog crushing her and the demented pounding of drums and cymbals coming from her son's bedroom. To add to her gloom, it was pelting with rain outside.

She lay still for a moment, gathering her thoughts. She had a chiropody appointment for a painful corn and a client she loathed would be in her office in just over two hours. It was going to be one of those days, she had the feeling, when things just kept on getting worse. Like the drumming.

'Tyler!' she yelled. 'For Christ's sake, stop that. Are you ready?'

Otis leapt off the bed and began barking furiously at his reflection in the mirror on the wall.

The drumming fell silent.

She staggered to the bathroom, found the paracetamols and gulped two down. I am so not a good example to my son, she thought. I'm not even a good example to my dog.

As if on cue, Otis padded into the bathroom, holding his lead in his mouth expectantly.

'What's for breakfast, Mum?' Tyler called out.

She stared at herself in the bathroom mirror. Mercifully, most of her forty-one-year-old - and this morning going on 241-year-old - face was shrouded in a tangle of blonde hair that looked, at this moment, like matted straw.

'Arsenic!' she shouted back, her throat raw from too many cigarettes last night. 'Laced with cyanide and rat poison.'

Otis stamped his paw on the bathroom tiles.

'Sorry, no walkies. Not this morning. Later. OK?'

'I had that yesterday!' Tyler shouted back.

'Well, it didn't sodding work, did it?'

She switched on the shower, waited for it to warm up, then stepped inside.

DEAD MAN'S GRIP. Copyright © 2011 by Really Scary Books/Peter James. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

Editorial Reviews

British author James’s seventh crime novel featuring Det. Supt. Roy Grace (after 2010’s Dead Like You) opens with a fatal road accident in the center of Brighton involving a truck, a car, a van, and an unfortunate American cyclist, Tony Revere, who’s the grandson of Mafia boss Sal Giordano. While the initial focus is on the van driver, lowlife Ewan Preece, who raced away from the accident, it becomes apparent that there’s a more ominous force at work. Revere’s family hires a chillingly rational killer called Tooth to eliminate every person present at the accident—even though no one actually directly caused Revere’s death. Grace works the case withsidekick Det. Sgt. Glenn Branson and the rest of his team of well-sketched members, each bringing his or her individual talent to the investigation. The grim creativity of the victims’ deaths and the ease of movement of the action are two of the many compelling reasons to stick with this series. (Dec.)

Publishers Weekly

Possibly the most engrossing thriller since The Silence of the Lambs.” —Washington Post Book World on Dead Like You

“Sinister and riveting . . . Peter James is one of the best British crime writers, and therefore one of the best in the world.” —Lee Child on Dead Like You

“A terrific thriller . . . Dead Like You is a haunting page-turner that seamlessly blends psychological suspense with police procedure, echoing the heart and voices of such authors as P. D. James and Ian Rankin at their best.” —Jeffery Deaver on Dead Like You

“Peter James creates worlds as familiar as your backyard, but doubly spicy, smart, and entertaining. Danger and drama leap from every page, as the master delivers precisely what every reader wants: plenty of sizzle and emotional clout. Dead Like You makes for a terrific read. Don't miss this one.” —Steve Berry on Dead Like You

“U.S. readers deserve to know what the rest of the world has known for years—Peter James is one of the best crime writers in the business.” —Karin Slaughter on Dead Like You

“Thrilling . . . will leave readers eager for the next installment.” —Publishers Weekly on Dead Like You

From the Publisher

Rule of thumb: don't mess with a mobster's kid. One frantic morning, three stressed-out drivers are involved in a fatal hit-and-run accident. The dead bicyclist, an American graduate student studying in Brighton, is the son of an American Mafia family. Not content to let Det. Roy Grace and his colleagues find the sole driver who fled the accident scene, the boy's vengeful parents hire the very best hit man to kill all three drivers in a "creative" manner. He is quite thorough and cruel, and Grace needs to stop this guy before more innocent folks die. VERDICT This seventh entry in James's Roy Grace series (after Dead Like You) can be read as a stand-alone. Dollars to doughnuts your readers will come back begging for more after this exciting one. For fans of Lee Child and Jeffery Deaver—and perhaps Nelson DeMille.

Library Journal

A nasty accident on a rain-soaked Brighton street is equally fatal for its victims and its survivors. Whether he's distracted by recent sex or the weather or the early hour, American student Tony Revere rides his bicycle into an intersection on the wrong side of the street and is promptly mowed down by a lorry whose unknown driver speeds off. Two other drivers have been involved in the accident: long-haul trucker Stuart Ferguson and widowed solicitor Carly Chase. Ferguson is seriously injured; Carly is detained by the police after her night-before drinking causes her to fail a Breathalyzer test. Arrested and left in a cell, she despairs of her ruined day, the impending loss of her driving license and her uncertainty about how to get her son Tyler, 12, to school and back. Nor is it cause for joy when the Brighton CID, under veteran Det. Supt. Roy Grace (Dead Like You, 2010, etc.), clears her of causing the accident and releases her, for by then a much more serious threat has surfaced. Tony's controlling mother Fernanda, whose jailed father is "the New York Godfather" and whose husband Lou is the Mob's chief banker, flies in from Long Island to wail, gnash her teeth and offer a $100,000 reward for the identification (not, be it noted, the capture and conviction) of her son's killer. Meanwhile, convinced that all three drivers are at fault, Fernanda privately offers a killer named Tooth $1 million to eliminate them all, preferably in baroque and painful ways. It's almost too easy for Tooth to dispose of the first two unfortunates, but as he closes in on Carly, she hatches a desperate scheme to save herself. It doesn't exactly go as expected, and she's left much worse off than before with still many pages to go. As usual, James spins a kitchen-sink thriller that goes on forever, and very enjoyably, though it certainly could have been cut down to a single night's reading.

Kirkus Reviews