A parent's worst nightmare is Grace's deadliest case..
Kipp Brown, successful businessman and compulsive gambler, is having the worst run of luck of his life. He's beginning to lose big style. However, taking his teenage son, Mungo, to their club's big Saturday afternoon football match should have given him a welcome respite, if only for a few hours. But it' at the stadium where his nightmare begins.
Within minutes of arriving at the game, Kipp bumps into a client. He takes his eye of Mungo for a few moments, and in that time, the boy is gone. Then he gets the terrifying message that someone has his child, and to get him back alive, Kipp will have to pay.
Defying instruction not to contact the police, Kipp reluctantly does just that, and Detective Superintendent Roy Grace is brought into investigate. At first it seems a straightforward case of kidnap. But rapidly Grace finds himself entering a dark, criminal underbelly of the city, where the rules are different and nothing is what it seems...
Industry Reviews
'In my thirty four years of policing, never have I come across a writer who so accurately depicts "The Job".'
Detective Investigator Pat Lanigan, Office of the District Attorney, NYPD
'No one can deny James's success as a crime novelist . . . The Grace stories almost always go to the top of the bestseller lists, not least because they are supremely well-told. James writes meticulously researched police procedurals, so informed that you can smell the canteen coffee . . . enthralling/'
Daily Mail
'Meticulous research gives his prose great authenticity . . . James manages to add enough surprises and drama that by the end you're rooting for the police and really don't know if they will finally get their men.'
Sunday Express
'James just gets better and better and deserves the success he has achieved with this first-class series.'
Independent on Sunday
'Peter James is one of the best crime writers in the business.'
Karin Slaughter