Peter James' You Are Dead - Review

You Are Dead by Peter James

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


A gripping serial killer thriller, featuring Detective Superintendent Roy Grace.

A woman is abducted from the car park beneath her home, waking to find herself trapped and at the mercy of her attacker.

The police launch a major inquiry in search of her; meanwhile, skeletonised remains are uncovered at an excavation site.

When the inquiries merge, Grace and the team find themselves hunting a serial killer who has eluded detection for decades.

'You Are Dead' is the eleventh novel in Peter James' Roy Grace series. An intense psychological thriller, it takes us into the twisted psyche of a serial killer, delving into his past and how his crimes began, through to his chilling endgame. We also experience the plight of the victims, closely following Logan's predicament from the moment of her abduction, while the police uncover the evidence of the killer’s crimes in a race against time to find Logan before she, too, loses her life.

With detailed insights into forensics and police procedure, Peter James once again delivers an immersive, riveting thriller; another superb novel in the long-running police procedural series. Also picking up on several elements where we left the characters in the previous novel, we again continue to follow the central and recurring characters’ lives closely, the team in the aftermath of losing one of their own and preparing to have to say goodbye. Recently married and with a young son at home with Cleo, Roy feels the pressure more than ever as perhaps the biggest investigation of his career to date dominates his life.

In a relentlessly paced, action-packed and character-driven narrative, we navigate each twist and turn in the investigation towards the tense finale; the novel also an incredibly emotional entry in the series, fraught with danger for characters we have grown to love over the previous ten novels, with the increasing momentum of suspense as the team get closer to catching this vicious killer.

Alongside the investigation, the ongoing subplots of the series continue, as Roy comes closer than ever before to solving the mystery of Sandy's disappearance, at a time when perhaps he wishes it would be best left in the past. The novel ends leaving us in eager anticipation of diving into the twelfth novel, 'Love You Dead'.



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