Robert lives in North East England. He works in Recruitment by day, and is usually to be found knee deep in a pile of books as a reader and reviewer by night. He has recently signed with The Blair Partnership, and his debut crime novel, What Falls Between the Cracks was released in Spring 2018.
Lorna Belling’s life is in turmoil. Stuck in an abusive marriage, and afraid to leave her husband, she falls for another man who offers her a way out. Her dreams of a new life are cruelly ripped away though, when a client shows her a photograph that changes everything.
Detective Superintendent Roy Grace has his own fair share of complications. As if his ex-wife’s suicide in Germany wasn’t enough to open old wounds, he finds himself father to a teenage son, Bruno (who he didn’t even know existed). Grace is all set to travel to Germany to meet his son for the first time, when Lorna Belling is found dead in a bathtub. It seems a slam dunk, with her husband’s history of violence, but the case quickly spirals out of control. New possibilities and new suspects appear, some of which border on the unthinkable, but he can’t rule out anything if Lorna Belling’s killer is to be stopped.
I’ll start with a confession. This is my first Roy Grace book. That may seem like a cardinal sin to some, to have neglected Peter James on my TBR pile for so long, but it was well worth the wait. In Roy Grace, we have a character with enough clout to carry along almost any plot. Grace finds himself in the epicentre of a perfect storm as his personal life competes with his professional one; stretching him right to his limits (but in doing so, makes him all the more human, and relatable).
Peter James parades an assortment of suspects in front of you, each with a compelling case as to why it could be them, making for a real page-turner. You’re made to question enough people and their motives, to carry you through to the last page at an impressive pace.
In short, if, like me, you’ve held off joining the Roy Grace fan club, there’s no time like the present, and once you’re hooked, there’s a big enough back catalogue to keep you busy for the foreseeable future.
