“Dead man’s grip” is the newest entry in Peter James’s mystery series featuring Detective Superintendent Roy Grace of the Sussex police force. In Grace’s newest case, Tony Revere—an American student studying in Great Britain and the grandson of a New York mafia don—is run over by multiple cars while biking on the wrong side of the road. And soon, all the drivers involved in the accident begin getting murdered one by one, until there’s no one left except Carly Chase—a middle-aged lawyer and single mother who had narrowly avoided hitting the biker before crashing into a nearby café at the time of the accident. As Grace and the police figure out the murder pattern, they rush to protect Carly before it’s too late. But Carly, feeling she is innocent, has a mind of her own--and stages a dangerous encounter. Meanwhile Detective Grace is struggling with problems of his own. His fiancé, Cleo, is having a troubled pregnancy and struggling to save their unborn child. Meanwhile his ex-wife Sandy, who had disappeared ten years ago and presumably dead, winds up in Germany and is furious that Grace, who has no clue as to her whereabouts and needs to “divorce” her before he can get married to Cleo, wants to declare her dead. This was my first time reading a Roy Grace mystery. The storyline was pretty good, and the writing full of details. James had done a lot of research prior to completing this story, and it shows in the writing. If you like thrillers with well-developed characters and plot elements, then you will enjoy this. Published by Minotaur Books. November 22, 2011. 416 pages. List price $25.99
