Left You Dead

Really riveting. Absolutely marvelous storyline with twists, turns and more twists. I thoroughly enjoyed it. You don't have to be a reader of the whole series to read any one of the series, but why wouldn't you read the whole series....each one is fabulous.

I’m a huge fan of James. Love his quick, down to business style. Love the various twists… I spend my time guessing how it will end… this book very much delivers on all counts!One caveat. While extremely sad, and makes you feel very much for Grace, I was somewhat unsure about the Bruno story that doesn’t really connect with the story enough. Yes it shows Grace’s personal life and humanity, but was it necessary to have his son - spoiler - die?

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I liked the whole concept of the story and it kept me guessing. The Police team have some great characters and the atmosphere around them seems very real. Well written and I look forward to more.

Brilliantly, Peter James has managed to come up with another racy read, which is not always the case, but in "Left You Dead" he manages to keep us guessing for most of another of his enormous tomes! He manages to wake all kinds of suspicions in his readers so that one is never quite sure "who done what to whom" ...and why!All in all, a very enjoyable book with enough suspense to keep you hanging on in there for nearly 500 pages!

Ok, first of all, THIS CONTAINS SPOILERS.I have read the entire Roy Grace series, as well as most of Peter James's other books, and although the series is largely enjoyable, I do find that some of the threads that carry on through the books get tired. But the one that was making me wonder this time ... well, did Mr James get tired of it?SMALL SPOILER HEREThe main case that is featured in the book was, to be honest, very easily guessable. And as soon as the second major clue was dropped, I knew where it was all going. But nonetheless it was readable.Then onto the characterisation.I have always had a bit of a problem with Cleo, who is painted as blonde, intelligent (she works out a "clue" in a letter that was so blindingly obvious that one might wonder about Roy Grace's own IQ) and all-round nice, but I have never got a true sense of her character. In fact each character has their own niche from Casian Pewe (bad boss whose ego rules) to Norman Potting (misogynistic with a childish tendency to come up with inappropriate jokes, but we are invited to feel sorry for him because of the loss of his fiancee followed by health problems) and many are actually fairly two-dimensional. I get the impression that plot and research are important, but a subtle, interesting, painting of characters is not always a strong point.So, coming onto my major bugbear: we have gone through the whole Sandy thing which was dragged out interminably over a number of books, until she was conveniently killed off and nowMAJOR SPOILERthe entire Bruno story has been building up, with this apparent budding psychopath living under the Grace roof and what? James just kills him off. Are we now supposed to feel sorry for Bruno as a deeply unhappy child who has met a sad end? I feel that the entire build-up of his character has been thrown out of the window because Mr James got bored with this thread, or perhaps didn't know where to go with it. In fact I am torn between irritation at another long-drawn-out issue like the Sandy one, and frustration that it was not resolved more satisfyingly. I was even surprised at the way Roy Grace seemed to know so little about organ donation, given his position.No doubt I shall read the next book, but I did go through this one with a sense of, well, frustration and dissatisfaction. Which is a shame.