Need You Dead by Peter James (Macmillan, £20.00)
www.amazon.co.uk/d/Books/Need-You-Dead-Roy-Grace-Peter-James
Peter has had a phenomenal year, receiving the coveted Crime Writers’ Association Diamond Dagger Award, an award to mark sustained excellence a significant contribution to crime writing. He stormed the charts with 3 titles in the Sunday Times Bestseller lists within a month, including the previous Roy Grace title Love You Dead, and he has now sold over 18million copies of the crime series worldwide. The great detective has also once again translated to stage this year, with Not Dead Enough starring Shane Ritchie and Laura Whitmore, currently touring the UK to critical acclaim.
In Need You Dead, Grace is faced with the body of woman in the bath of a secret flat, a crime scene suspiciously clean… But with his previous case not yet sentenced, a dangerous hitman under his watch and the sudden arrival of a thirteen-year-old son he’s only just discovered, Grace is forced to rely on his team more than ever. But as ever more threatening men are linked to the victim, can he trust his team to follow procedure? Or could there be even more sinister secrets within the force?
As always, Peter’s writing is heavily researched and in this latest he explored spiralling cases of cyber-crime, the response process to domestic disputes and Scotland Yard’s Super Recogniser team. This specialist unit was set up after the London riots when it was discovered that some officers can recognise faces with an accuracy rate of up to 90% where the average person recognises just 23% of the faces seen.
