Love You Dead
Peter James
There is a Black Widow on the loose – having first turned to plastic surgery to make her beautiful, all that remains for Jodie Danforth to make herself rich by marrying a rich man. She isn’t all that excited about remaining married though – and she kills them off almost as fast as she gets married.
There is no need to have read the 11 books in the Roy Grace series before this. Other reviewers have complained that it took ages for the Detective to enter the story – I didn’t miss this because I didn’t know what to expect of him. I actually loved being in the mind of the ‘Black Widow’ and the other criminals.
I liked the criminals. I perhaps liked them more than the Detective himself! I was excited to get inside their thoughts and experience things. I actually sympathised with the petty house thief the most and wished he could have gotten straight before, well, dying.
If you have a thing for reptiles and interesting poisons, the thing you’re going to love about this novel is the reptile room. I would have loved to learn more about the poisons, but there are still limits on facts you can include in a novel, even one this large.
I really enjoyed reading this novel, and would have given it 5 stars, had it not been that I was reading a Iris & Roy Johansen crime novel with my favourite heroine Kendra at the same time. All in all, this was ‘just’ another crime novel, albeit a very well written and researched one. I’m certainly not going to turn down other novels by Peter James!
Pan Macmillan | 26 July 2016 | AU $29.99 | Paperback
Review Update: 7 December 2021 – Why yes, I did enjoy this a second time around! It still skips between perspectives a bit too much for my liking, but I felt like I could see the net closing in! And again, I’m still fascinated by the poisons, and wish I had learnt more about them.
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