Peter James, Roy Grace Books in Order including New Releases

This article includes all of the books in the Roy Grace detective series, in order of release. The popular Brighton-set police novels from best-selling author, Peter James.

Now also a new crime drama on ITV, Grace. Starring John Simm as DS Roy Grace. Series 1 (Spring 2021) covers the first two books in the Roy Grace series. Series 2 (April 2022) covers the Roy Grace books 3, 4 and 5.

For more popular and best-selling crime fiction book series lists, see my posts listed below.

Roy Grace Books in Order

You can read the books in any order, but if you enjoy reading detective series in order, I’ve listed all of the books in order of first publication, including any short stories with Roy Grace. Plus details of the audiobook versions and how to download these mystery audiobooks for free.

Dead Simple: Roy Grace Book 1

Released: December 2005 | UK Amazon rating: 4.5 out of 5 | Narrator: Tim Bruce.

Plot: Detective Superintendent Roy Grace’s first major case is one he’ll ever forget. It was meant to be a harmless stag-night prank. But a few hours later, the groom has disappeared and his friends are dead. With only three days to the wedding, Grace is contacted by the man’s distraught fiancée to unearth what happened on that fateful night. Grace discovers that the one man who ought to know of the groom’s whereabouts is saying nothing. But then he has a lot more to gain than anyone realises, for one man’s disaster is another man’s fortune…. [Source: Amazon]

*Dead Simple free mystery audiobook available from UK Amazon with 30 day Audible trial.

Looking Good Dead: Roy Grace Book 2

Released: June 2006 | UK Amazon rating: 4.6 out of 5 | Narrator: Neil Pearson.

Plot: Tom Bryce did what any decent person would do. But within hours of picking up the CD that had been left behind on the train seat next him, and attempting to return it to its owner, he is the sole witness to a vicious murder. Then his young family are threatened with their lives if he goes to the police. But supported by his wife, Kellie, he bravely makes a statement, to the murder enquiry team headed by Detective Superintendent Roy Grace, a man with demons of his own – including his missing wife – to contend with.

And from that moment, the killing of the Bryce family becomes a mere formality – and a grisly attraction. Kellie and Tom’s deaths have already been posted on the internet. You can log on and see them on a website. They are looking good dead. [Source: Amazon]

*Looking Good Dead free mystery audiobook available from UK Amazon with 30 day Audible trial.

Not Dead Enough: Roy Grace Book 3

Released: June 2007 | UK Amazon rating: 4.6 out of 5 | Narrator: David Bauckham.

Plot: On the night Brian Bishop murdered his wife, he was sixty miles away, asleep in bed at the time. At least, that’s the way it looks to Detective Superintendent Roy Grace who is called in to investigate the kinky slaying of beautiful young Brighton socialite, Katie Bishop. Soon, Grace starts coming to the conclusion that Bishop has performed the apparently impossible feat of being in two places at once. Has someone stolen his identity, or is he simply a very clever liar?

As Grace digs deeper behind the facade of the Bishops’ outwardly respectable lives, it starts to become clear that all is not at all as it first seemed. And then he digs just a little too far, and suddenly the fragile stability of his own troubled, private world is facing destruction… [Source: Amazon]

*Not Dead Enough free mystery audiobook available from UK Amazon with 30 day Audible trial.

Dead Man’s Footsteps: Roy Grace Book 4

Released: September 2008 | UK Amazon rating: 4.5 out of 5 | Narrator: David Bauckham.

Plot: From the ashes of mass destruction… Amid the tragic unfolding mayhem of the morning of 9/11, failed Brighton businessman and ne’er-do-well Ronnie Wilson sees the chance of a lifeline: to shed his debts, disappear and reinvent himself in another country. Six years later the discovery of the skeletal remains of a woman’s body in a storm drain in Brighton leads Detective Superintendent Roy Grace on an enquiry spanning the globe, and into a desperate race against time to save the life of a woman being hunted down like an animal in the streets and alleys of Brighton. [Source: Amazon]

*Dead Man’s Footsteps free mystery audiobook available from UK Amazon with 30 day Audible trial.

Dead Tomorrow: Roy Grace Book 5

Released: June 2009 | UK Amazon rating: 4.6 out of 5 | Narrator: David Bauckham.

Plot: In an evil world, everything is for sale… The body of a missing teenager is dredged from the seabed off the Sussex coast, missing vital organs. Soon after, a further two more bodies are found… Caitlin Beckett, a 15 year old in Brighton will die if she does not receive an urgent transplant. When the health system threatens to let her down her mother takes drastic action and goes to an online broker in black-market organs. The broker can provide what she wants, but it will come at a price…

As Superintendent Roy Grace investigates the recovered bodies, he unearths the trail of a gang of child traffickers operating from Eastern Europe. Soon Grace and his team will find themselves in a race against time to save the life of a young street kid, while a desperate mother will stop at nothing to save her daughter’s life. [Source: Amazon]

*Dead Tomorrow free mystery audiobook available from UK Amazon with 30 day Audible trial.

Dead Like You: Roy Grace Book 6

Released: November 2010 | UK Amazon rating: 4.6 out of 5 | Narrator: David Bauckham.

Plot: Don’t imagine for one moment that I’m not watching you… The Metropole Hotel, Brighton. After a heady New Year’s Eve ball, a woman is brutally raped as she returns to her room. A week later, another woman is attacked. Both victims’ shoes are taken by the offender…

Detective Superintendent Roy Grace soon realises that these new cases bear remarkable similarities to an unsolved series of crimes in the city back in 1997. The perpetrator had been dubbed ‘Shoe Man’ and was believed to have raped five women before murdering his sixth victim and vanishing.

Could this be a copycat, or has Shoe Man resurfaced? When more women are assaulted, Grace becomes increasingly certain that they are dealing with the same man. And that by delving back into the past – a time in which we see Grace and his missing wife Sandy still apparently happy together – he may find the key to unlocking the current mystery. Soon Grace and his team will find themselves in a desperate race against the clock to identify and save the life of the new sixth victim. [Source: Amazon]

*Dead Like You free mystery audiobook available from UK Amazon with 30 day Audible trial.

Dead Man’s Grip: Roy Grace Book 7

Released: June 2011 | UK Amazon rating: 4.6 out of 5 | Narrator: Jamie Glover.

Plot: Can Detective Superintendent Roy Grace stop a grieving mother from taking the law into her own hands? A university student is killed in a tragic traffic accident while riding their bicycle. When two of the drivers involved are hunted down by a sadistic killer, Grace knows that the third driver, Carly Chase, may be next.

Carly, a solicitor, believes hiding is not an option and heads to New York to speak with the cyclist’s mother. But Grace knows about the mother’s underworld connections and that the family will stop at nothing to take an eye for an eye… [Source: Amazon]

*Dead Man’s Grip free mystery audiobook available from UK Amazon with 30 day Audible trial.

Not Dead Yet: Roy Grace Book 8

Released: June 2012 | UK Amazon rating: 4.6 out of 5 | Narrator: William Gaminara.

Plot: The return of a Brighton girl turned movie star spells nothing but trouble for Detective Superintendent Roy Grace. Gaia Lafayette has a movie to shoot on location back home and Grace is in charge of her security. Yet when a vicious gangster is released from prison and an unidentifiable headless torso is found, a nightmare unfolds before Grace’s eyes. An obsessed stalker is after Gaia – and Grace knows that they may be at large in his city, waiting, watching, planning. [Source: Amazon]

*Not Dead Yet free mystery audiobook available from UK Amazon with 30 day Audible trial.

Dead Man’s Time: Roy Grace Book 9

Released: June 2013 | UK Amazon rating: 4.6 out of 5 | Narrator: Daniel Weyman.

Plot: The past haunts Detective Superintendent Roy Grace in his new case – and in his private life. A vicious robbery at a secluded Brighton mansion leaves its elderly occupant fighting for her life. Millions of pounds’ worth of valuables have been stolen.

Within days, Grace is racing against the clock, following a murderous trail that leads him from the shady antiques world of England, across Europe and all the way back to the New York waterfront’s gang struggles of 1922, chasing a killer driven by the force of one man’s greed and another man’s fury. [Source: Amazon]

*Dead Man’s Time free mystery audiobook available from UK Amazon with 30 day Audible trial.

Want You Dead: Roy Grace Book 10

Released: June 2014 | UK Amazon rating: 4.6 out of 5 | Narrator: Daniel Weyman.

Plot: Detective Superintendent Roy Grace knows not every love story has a happy ending. Grace’s wife Sandy is officially declared dead after being missing for a decade, allowing him to marry the mother of his baby son. But Sandy’s disappearance is unexplained for a reason. Bryce Laurent doesn’t want his ex-girlfriend to move on. Terrified by Bryce’s dark side, she seeks police protection. But Bryce will not be stopped, determined to destroy everything and everyone she has ever known and loved – and then her too [Source: Amazon]

*Want You Dead free mystery audiobook available from UK Amazon with 30 day Audible trial.

You Are Dead: Roy Grace Book 11

Released: May 2015 | UK Amazon rating: 4.7 out of 5 | Narrator: Daniel Weyman.

Plot: Is Detective Superintendent Roy Grace tracking his home city’s first serial killer in over 80 years?

A series of young women – all beautiful, all with long brown hair – have been stalked and abducted. Each victim is found with a brand on their body, a marking that reads ‘U R Dead’. And some of their remains are from 30 years ago.

When Logan Somerville is taken while on the phone to her fiancé, Grace must find a lead, connect the cases and track down the killer before they can strike again [Source: Amazon]

*You Are Dead free mystery audiobook available from UK Amazon with 30 day Audible trial.

In the Nick of Time (Short Story)

Authors: Peter James and Ian Rankin | Released: July 2015 | UK Amazon rating: 3.8 out of 5.

Plot: In this original short story from the New York Times bestselling thriller anthology FaceOff, internationally bestselling authors Ian Rankin and Peter James – along with their most famous characters, John Rebus and Roy Grace – team up for the first time ever. Detectives John Rebus and Roy Grace could not be more different.

Different generations, different backgrounds, and not to mention the fact that they work 500 miles apart. The case that eventually brings them together centres on a crime that happened when Rebus was just a teenager in the 1960s – but it took place in Roy Grace’s stomping grounds in Brighton, England, at a time when violence erupted between rival gangs known as Mods and Rockers. Now, a deathbed confession in in Edinburgh brings Rebus and Grace together to investigate a cold case with a shocking twist. [Source: Amazon]

Love You Dead: Roy Grace Book 12

Released: May 2016 | UK Amazon rating: 4.7 out of 5 | Narrator: Daniel Weyman.

Plot: A shocking reveal threatens to unravel Detective Superintendent Roy Grace’s happy new life. Grace is newly married, having moved to a country cottage with Chloe and their baby son. But his first, long-missing wife, now found, has left Grace a surprise greater than he could have imagined. Yet the police need Grace at work: an escaped murderer who left a bullet in him is back and a Black Widow is leaving an international trail of corpses after – in every sense – bleeding them dry. Now, she’s come to Brighton for her next rich target… [Source: Amazon]

*Love You Dead free mystery audiobook available from UK Amazon with 30 day Audible trial.

Need You Dead: Roy Grace Book 13

Released: May 2017 | UK Amazon rating: 4.7 out of 5 | Narrator: Daniel Weyman.

Plot: Roy Grace, creation of the CWA Diamond Dagger award winning Author Peter James, faces his most mysterious case yet in Need You Dead. It’s up to Detective Superintendent Roy Grace to discover the truth. Lorna Belling, desperate to escape the marriage from hell, falls for the charms of a man who promises her the earth. But, as Lorna soon finds, life seldom follows the plans you’ve made. When the body of a woman is found, Grace is called to the scene. At first it looks an open-and-shut case with a clear prime suspect. That is, until Grace realises there is a darker, far more terrifying alternative… [Source: Amazon]

*Need You Dead free mystery audiobook available from UK Amazon with 30 day Audible trial.

Dead If You Don’t: Roy Grace Book 14

Released: May 2018 | UK Amazon rating: 4.6 out of 5 | Narrator: Daniel Weyman.

Plot: 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’s 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 [Source: Amazon]

*Dead If You Don’t free mystery audiobook available from UK Amazon with 30 day Audible trial.

Dead at First Sight: Roy Grace Book 15

Released: May 2019 | UK Amazon rating: 4.6 out of 5 | Narrator: Daniel Weyman.

Plot: A man waits at a London airport for the love of his life to arrive. Across the Atlantic, a retired cop waits in a bar in Florida’s Key West for his first date with the lady who is his soulmate. The two men are about to discover they’ve been scammed out of almost every penny they have in the world – and that neither women exist. In the same week, Roy Grace is called to investigate the suicide of a woman in Brighton, that is clearly not what it seems.

As his investigations continue, a handsome motivational speaker comes forward. He’s discovered his identity is being used to scam eleven different women online. The first he knew of it was a phone call from one of them saying, ‘You don’t know me, but I thought I knew you’. That woman is now dead. Roy Grace realises he is looking at the tip of an iceberg. Can he bring down the murderous global empire built on clever, cruel internet scams? [Source: Amazon]

*Dead at First Sight free mystery audiobook available from UK Amazon with 30 day Audible trial.

Find Them Dead: Roy Grace Book 16

Released: July 2020 | UK Amazon rating: 4.3 out of 5 | Narrator: Daniel Weyman.

Plot: Ending his secondment to London’s Met Police, Roy Grace gets a tip-off about a county lines drugs mastermind operating out of Brighton. On his first day back in his old job in Sussex, he is called to a seemingly senseless murder. Separately, Meg Magellan finally has her life back together, five years after the car crash that killed her husband and their son.

Her daughter, Laura, now eighteen, is on her gap year travelling in South America with a friend, and Meg misses her badly. Laura is all she has in the world. In between jobs, Meg receives a summons for jury service. She’s excited – it might be interesting and will help distract her from constantly worrying about Laura.

But when she is selected for the trial of a major Brighton drugs overlord, everything changes. Gradually, Grace’s investigation draws him increasingly into the sinister sphere of influence of the drug dealer on trial. A man utterly ruthless and evil, prepared to order the death of anyone it takes to enable him to walk free. Just a few days into jury service, Meg arrives home to find a photograph of Laura, in Ecuador, lying on her kitchen table.

Then her phone rings. A sinister, threatening stranger is on the line. He tells her that if she ever wants to see Laura alive again, it is very simple. At the end of the trial, all she has to do is make sure the jury says just two words…. Not guilty. [Source: Amazon]

*Find Them Dead free mystery audiobook available from UK Amazon with 30 day Audible trial.

Left You Dead: Roy Grace Book 17

Released: May 2021 | UK Amazon rating: 4.6 out of 5 | Narrator: Daniel Weyman.

Plot: Niall and Eden Paternoster start their Sunday the same way they always do – with a long drive, a visit to a country house and a quick stop at the local supermarket on the way home. But this Sunday ends differently – because while Niall waits and waits in the car park for Eden to pick up supplies, Eden never returns. She’s not waiting for him at home, and none of their family or friends have heard from her. Gone without a trace, Niall is arrested on suspicion of her murder. When DS Roy Grace is called in to investigate, it doesn’t take long to realize that nothing in this case is quite as it seems… [Source: Amazon]

*Left You Dead free mystery audiobook available from UK Amazon with 30 day Audible trial.

Wish You Were Dead (Short Story)

Released: May 2021 | UK Amazon rating: 4.3 out of 5 | Narrator: Daniel Weyman.

Plot: Roy Grace and his family have left Sussex behind for a week’s holiday in France. The website promised a grand house, but when they arrive the place is very different from the pictures. And it soon becomes clear that their holiday nightmare is only just beginning. An old enemy of Roy, a lowlife criminal he had put behind bars, is now out of jail – and out for revenge. He knows where Roy and his family have gone on holiday. Of course he does. He’s been hacking their emails – and they are in the perfect spot for him to pay Roy back. [Source: Amazon]

*Wish You Were Dead free mystery audiobook available from UK Amazon with 30 day Audible trial.

Picture You Dead: Roy Grace Book 18

Released: September 2022.

Description: Discover the darkness that lurks around every corner in the latest instalment of Peter James’s award-winning detective series, which is now a major ITV programme starring John Simm as Roy Grace. [Source: Amazon]

*Picture You Dead free mystery audiobook available from UK Amazon with 30 day Audible trial.

Stop Them Dead: Roy Grace, Book 19

Released: September 2023.

Description: In the dead of night, a farmer hears a suspicious noise. It’s everyone’s worst nightmare: a break-in. When he confronts the intruders, he has no idea that just minutes later he will be left lying in a pool of blood. But the chilling truth lies not in the act itself, but what the perpetrators were willing to kill for… [Source: Amazon]

*Stop Them Dead: Roy Grace, Book 19 audiobook is available free from UK Amazon with 30 day Audible trial.

One of Us Is Dead: Roy Grace, Book 20

Released: September 2024.

Description: When James Taylor arrives late for a funeral, he has to stand at the back of the small church. But, as the service progresses, Taylor notices a man six rows in front of him. At first he thinks he must be mistaken, but the more he looks at the man, the more convinced Taylor becomes that this is his old schoolfriend Rufus Rorke. Except it couldn’t be him, could it? Because two years ago Taylor attended Rufus Rorke’s funeral. He even delivered Rufus’s eulogy… [Source: Amazon]

*One of Us Is Dead: Roy Grace, Book 20 audiobook is available free from UK Amazon with 30 day Audible trial.

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