Peter James' Dead Man's Footsteps - Review

Dead Man's Footsteps by Peter James

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


A complex case for Roy Grace and the team to unravel, that stretches across continents and back in time into the heart of atrocity.

The discovery of skeletonised remains in a storm drain changes the course of Roy Grace’s weekend plans, launching an investigation into the suspicious death, the first priority being to identify the unknown victim and how she came to be abandoned where she was found.

Meanwhile, in Australia, the body of another young woman is found in the boot of a submerged car. As both suspicious deaths on opposite sides of the planet are determined to be murder, potential links form between them and the presumed death of a man during the terror attacks of 9/11.

As the investigations progress, another young woman who has travelled to the UK under an assumed identity is in fear for her life. By the time her plight comes to the attention of police and linked to the murder inquiry, they find themselves in a race against time to save lives and apprehend a dangerous offender.

Peter James’ Roy Grace series has quickly become one of my favourite police procedural series, and this fourth entry once again does not disappoint – a complex, thrilling plot that evolves in fast-paced twists and turns, packed with layers of detail and well-developed characters. The main plot takes place several months after the previous novel, ‘Not Dead Enough’, picking up the threads of the key character’s personal lives, ongoing subplots and the aftermath of the cases of recent months.

The novel also features flashbacks to the events in New York on 11th September 2001 and its immediate aftermath. While the events themselves are tangential to the core plot, those scenes offer an insight into the horrors experienced that day and what was witnessed and experienced by the many who were there. It remains a defining moment in recent history, the images of the horror that occurred that day forever imprinted on the memories of countless people across the planet.

Told with both gritty realism and sensitivity, the multiple strands of the story weave their own threads, racing on their own paths until tying together at the climax, the novel leaving us with that final concluding scene and its tantalising final sentence. Each of the four novels in the series so far have offered something different, a different approach to a murder investigation with a multitude of driving factors, each time offering a fresh approach while developing the series’ own formula and ongoing character arcs.

A gripping police procedural crime thriller, ‘Dead Man’s Footsteps’ will have you hooked from beginning to end and leave you in eager anticipation for the next case. Next in the series is ‘Dead Tomorrow’ and I cannot wait to read it.



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