Book #29: Dead Tomorrow by Peter James
Dead Tomorrow by Peter James
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is the fifth book in the Roy Grace series, and I was keen to read this before watching the recent ITV adaptation.
This one involves illegal organ trafficking, and it first introduces us to a mother whose daughter is in need of a liver transplant, and who will do anything do save her daughter. A story that starts of separate involves two refugees who are attempting to come to England, only to fall in with a group who are killing people to harvest their organs. Meanwhile, Roy Grace starts investigating when bodies that are missing organs are found in the ocean.
Meanwhile, the plot furthers Roy Grace's personal life, as his relationship with Cleo Morey takes a few significant steps forward. I won't spoil things here, but considering how the fourth novel ended, I have a good idea as to where the plot is going in the future. It feels like it will turn into a gradual slow-burner.
There is a very easy to understand commentary on the plight of refugees in this book, and there is a recurring theme of people who will do anything to get what they need. This includes the actions of the mother, who is trying to save her daughter, and when she gets involved with the organ transplanting ring, her efforts to raise money for the transplant include performing sex acts on a man who has promised to pay her.
I noticed that this book was darker and more gruesome than the previous novels in the series, with some content that felt like something out of Stieg Larsson's Millennium series, including a particularly unpleasant chapter where one of the refugees gets sexually abused. Considering that ITV but this out at 8pm, I can imagine that several plot elements will have been significantly toned down.
I overall enjoyed this book; although there was a lot going on once again, there were none of the confusing time jumps that annoyed me in the previous book, and this is possibly the best book so far in the series. It was also one of those books where I thought I could predict the ending, only for it to finish with something completely different from what I was expecting.
I don't know when the next series will be on ITV, but I will try and keep up with reading the books.
View all my reviews