Ali Karim was a Board Member of Bouchercon [The World Crime & Mystery Convention] and co-chaired programming for Bouchercon Raleigh, North Carolina in 2015. He is Assistant Editor of Shots eZine, British correspondent for The Rap Sheet and writes and reviews for many US magazines & Ezines.
The anticipation for the latest Roy Grace thriller is high.
We have the acclaimed TV series ‘Grace’ featuring John Simm as the eponymous detective now entering its third season. Each episode is prefaced by a warning - "some viewers may find distressing." Perhaps Peter James’ publishers should adopt a similar tactic for his latest book – because our detective (and his team) reopen a cold-case ‘operation canvas’ – seasoned readers will know that ‘body bags’ will soon flow.
Written in James’ beguiling narrative style, where the detailed research into the grimy underbelly of the art world becomes exposed as something altogether different – a veneer, on a slippery canvas.
The action is split from the deeds of a respected art dealer in 2015; bleeding into 2019, when a middle-class suburban couple (Harry and Freya Kipling) uncover something far more intriguing from a car-boot sale; something far more sinister than the twenty pounds they paid for the picture frame.
Like our detective Roy Grace now appearing on TV (Grace) in a visual format, Harry and Freya Kipling take their painting to the TV Antiques Roadshow for a valuation, because beneath the oils of the canvas, lurks a landscape, a ‘lost’ masterwork from the 17th century – or is it?
This plot device (a painting concealed within a painting) imitates the novel’s narrative spine, for beneath the surface gloss of the art collecting world (that forms Picture You Dead’s backdrop), lurks a darker world, one of violence, one of murder and one of absolute greed.
Picture You Dead features James’ array of characters, each deftly painted on the page so they stand-up erect, so when coupled to the author’s unobtrusive (but detailed) research – we have clipped chapters that keep the pages flying as the reader becomes hypnotised as the layered plot is peeled back.
What is revealed is not pretty.
The last time the art world appeared as sinister to a reader, was back to Patricia Highsmith’s 1970 follow-up to The Talented Mr Ripley – namely Ripley Underground, when our amoral psychopath impersonates the dead painter Philip Derwatt, to fool the suspicious American art collector Thomas Murchison who ponders upon the difference between ‘the real’ and ‘the forgery’.
Peter James’ theme in Picture You Dead is if we can ever distinguish ‘the real’ from ‘the simulacrum’ by appearance alone?
As a long-term reader of Peter James, I’ll be intrigued to see how TV simulates Picture You Dead, in the visual medium.
Highly Recommended.
