Book review: 'Dead Man's Grip'

Book: Dead Man’s Grip
Author: Peter James
Publisher: Pan Macmillan 
Pages: 544
Price: Rs299

The latest in Peter James’ series of Roy Grace crime novels, Dead Man’s Grip, fails to thrill. The story begins with the gruesome death of a university student, and winds through the following investigation. What starts as an ordinary hit and run case briefly gains momentum when it is discovered that the victim is the grandson of a jailed American mafia family head. But this is where Peter James drops the ball.

What could have been an interesting tale filled with twists becomes an average revenge story, with the focus moving to the perverted mind of a professional killer — oddly called Tooth — and his methodical murder of two people.

The thrills in the novel, if any, come mostly in the latter half when a child is kidnapped. Roy Grace’s team uses sophisticated modern day technology to narrow down the location of the criminal. With a lucky break, he and his sidekick rescue the boy following an exciting chase.

In a blow-by-blow account, the bad guy is defeated and Roy Grace (a tad predictably) walks away, once more a hero.

The author is known for his attention to detail and in-depth knowledge of police procedure, evident in this book as well. But how relevant is the list of various police departments to the reader? Repeated appearances of the names of the investigating officers, their designations as well as departments, all seem like a distraction from the main storyline.

Similarly, Peter James includes visual details such as architecture, the geography of the region, and in the climax, an unnecessary run-in with a wild bird. It is almost as though he is writing for the screen. The details are visually appealing, but in a crime thriller the focus ought to be the chase, and not the alley down which the perpetrator has disappeared.

The central character of Roy Grace is fleshed out quite well, and the concluding loose ends are sufficiently interesting to make the reader want his next offering, but they hardly contribute to the main plot of this particular book.

All in all, Roy Grace and Peter James loyalists will read Dead Man’s Grip as just one more in the series, hoping that the next one will tie all the loose ends, and perhaps more thrillingly.