Not Dead Enough is the third book in Peter James’ detective Roy Grace series. As I had received all three books at once in the beginning of December I left them waiting on my desk and read them back to back during the Christmas holiday.
While the main players are the same, detective Roy Grace and his crew and acolytes, we are taken into the high society circles where the wife of a socialite elite business man is found murdered. Of course the first suspect is the husband himself, only that he was miles away at the time when the crime was committed and at first glance he’s got a solid alibi. Things are becoming a little more suspicious when his mistress, who he doesn’t acknowledge as being one, is also killed.
For those who read the previous books in the series, the atmosphere will feel quite familiar. Same endless line of descriptive details each time the setting is changing is still the main flaw of the novel. Some might like it, though I doubt there are many, some might feel lost, and other might find it utterly boring. I was somewhere in between.
The characters, although well-defined, are basically common stereotypes, and not always ones pleasant to deal with or follow their action. Even Roy’s mortician girlfriend with whom he has a relationship now seems less interesting than she used to be while he was still courting her.
The plot of the long time missing wife continues being awarded more time than before, with sightings of the woman being taken in account somewhere in Munich, which is a complete waste of time since nothing is solved and no extra details are found out. We’re simply lead on by a plot that seems to never end, and oh, how we wish it does, if only to put it behind us and know for sure we won’t be bother with it in the next book once more.
The main differences from the first two books are that the supernatural element is missing, thank god, making the story a little more plausible for a change, even if not that much. We don’t deal with just one type of environment, we’re taken from the high society down to the low life car thieves drug addict world. Also, the precipitated, not so mysterious, ending gets to involve the detective personal life hitting close to home.
As a general conclusion, the book is consistent with the series as far as writing style is concerned sticking to the attributes that define it. It goes deep into technical procedures as interesting as these might be, the tension is well dosed all through the books, but the ending sort of just happens, the reader knowing several pages in advance what to expect.
I don’t think I’ll buy the next book.
* * * * *
Written for Nemira “La limita suspansului“ campaign:
Looking Good Dead is the second book in Peter James’ detective Roy Grace series. Having read the first one I knew a little what to expect and being during the winter holiday and with no other available book to read I gave it a chance.
First, the plot. A CD is forgotten in the train and someone picks it up with the intention to return it to the owner. This is where we realize that the well-doer is not very bright. A wise person would know that it’s not easy to identify the owner of such item starting from the data written on it. A more workable and less time consuming solution would have been to deliver it to the next train station where the owner would more likely inquire about it if it was worth anything to him. But no, the guy takes it home and sticks his nose in it being rewarded with the “privilege” to watch online the live broadcast of a murder.
An expected death treat note sent in the form of an e-mail warning him not to go to the police follows completed with the erasing of the hard disk. One would think he got the message, but if he did then there would be no story. It turns out that he has got a conscience and, after much debating and discussing with his wife, he reports the crime. Are we really surprised when his wife is kidnapped next? Hardly.
And then it’s all up to by now familiar detective Roy Grace to solve the case and catch the bad guys. The book follows the known pattern from the previous book in the series, being filled with an unusual amount of unnecessary details. From this perspective the book succeeds in achieving two goals, being a crime novel as well as a touristic guide of the Bristol area, which is OK if you were looking for one but I doubt many readers are when buying this particular book.
Comparing it to the first book in the series this one has quite a bit of more gore, since it’s describing a couple of horrific murders. But then again gore and sex sell and the author knows it well. The insight in detective Grace’s private life continues, focusing even more on his missing wife sub-plot which is left unfinished once more, while his relationship with the gorgeous mortician is slowly progressing. Unfortunately the love scene is embarrassingly written.
The book suffers from the same flaws as the first one, a rushed, poorly explained and highly unrealistic ending, to which a spoiler I’m not going to divulge here is added. So the questions that remain are: Better than the first book? No. Enjoyable enough? Yes, if you have the time to spare, since it’s quite a big book.
As it often happens with my readings, especially when the book was received as a gift, I had no idea who Peter James was when I started reading Dead Simple. All I knew was from glancing over the back cover that it had to be some kind of a detective novel. The story unfolds rather well and we’re getting fast into the action. There’s a person missing, a young man about to get married, and the twist is that his best friends who were organizing a stag party for him have been involved in a car accident which left them, due to death or severe injuries, unable to tell where is or what happened to the groom-to-be. But this is just the beginning of the story.
The hero is detective Roy Grace from Bristol police, a lonely, socially challenged, middle age man, who is in charge with the case. In parallel with his efforts to find the missing person, we are showed what really happened to the young man, subjected to a bad prank gone wrong, buried in a coffin God knows where and left only with a walkie-talkie and bottle of whisky to keep him company. The fact that the other walkie-talkie ends up in the possession of a retarded young man doesn’t work in his favor. The clock is ticking and there isn’t much time left.
This could be the basis of a good story, but wait, there’s also a less so good part in it. While there are many more or less plausible twists and turns, the story feels like dragging because of the big amount of descriptions and focus on Roy’s life, or more exactly lack of it. The really bad part is Roy’s habit of using a medium’s help, something very unlikely to happen in real life, and the way things are precipitating towards the end, like an avalanche, pulling the villain out of the hat at the very end. After the chaotic turns of the situation up until that point, this feels like bad plotting or not enough plotting to say at least.
There’s also the unfinished plot of the detective’s wife, who’s been missing for the past nine years creating a sort of Great Expectation déjà-vu, and nothing really happens with the hot medical examiner from the morgue he has a thing for but he’s too shy to act upon.
One in all it’s not a bad book but it’s not a stellar one either. If you have a problem with claustrophobia, then this might add to it and give you an uncomfortable feeling not solely related to the confinement inside the coffin. The world today is not an easy place to live in.
Featuring: Malin Akerman, Billy Crudup, Matthew Goode, Jackie Earle Haley, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Patrick Wilson, Carla Gugino
Genre: action, sci fi, comics
Plot: When a former superhero is murdered, another superhero who investigates the case comes to the conclusion that it’s all part of a plan to exterminate ex-superheroes, but is it?
Acting: Good for a comics inspired movie.
Drama: US/Russia cold war, nuclear threat, lovetriangle, you name it.
Action: cool fighting scenes
Funny: come to think of it, not really
Visuals: great CGI, Dr. Manhattan walks around naked most of the time and there’s a particularly interesting scene between him and Silk Spectre II *snicker*, who cares he’s blue?, and Malin Akerman looks ridiculously hot in superhero attire.
Soundtrack: I didn’t find it appropriate, maybe the lyrics fit but not the actual music.
Comments: I'll say it from the start, this must be heaven for those who are into Watchmen comics. For regular people like me though, who hadn’t even heard of Watchmen before the movie, it’s a-whole-nother stroy. I guess it was in my advantage the fact that I had watched the Batman saga, X-Men trilogy, Spider-Man movies, Superman, and yes, even the bad Fantastic Four 1 & 2. I haven't read the comics, kinda hard to get them here, but at least I have watched the movies and I had an idea of what to expect.
For a comics movie adaptation this surely is a success, I haven't heard many fans complaining about it. For a movie, I found it too long, with too many unfamiliar characters and plots, to the point of getting confusing at times. I’m sure it made great sense to any Watchmen fan and they couldn’t wait for the next frame, but I kept looking at the watch wondering how much longer it was going to last. Some scene are just too long, perhaps in an attempt to give the movie more depth and an artsy feel.
While the CGI was impressive as stated above, I had a problem with the gratuitous gore scenes. I don't know how they are in the comics, probably more violent, but they could have been done much more tasty. It made me wonder what was the movie's rating, and I just checked it on IMDB. It's R, it figures. But it's an odd choice since the target audience is mainly under 20 given the subject. I don't know enough about it to dig for plot holes, so I won't even bother.
It leaves an opening for a sequel, but frankly, I don’t feel the need for one. And by the time they might make it the character might be too old, Nite Owl was already in a pre-porky phase and I'd hate to see Silk Spectre II out of her tights in a couple of years.
