Love You Dead

James’s immensely satisfying 12th Roy Grace procedural (after 2015’s You Are Dead) finds the Brighton detective superintendent taking a month off to recuperate after being shot in the leg by Dr. Edward Crisp, a suspected serial killer he was trying to arrest. In addition, Grace faces a horrid boss and demoralizing budget cuts to the police force. Fortunately, a convoluted case soon returns Grace to his favorite occupation—solving murders. Psychopathic gold digger Jodie Bentley has been luring one elderly suitor after another into her lethal web. The doggedly determined Grace leads his team in the dual effort to apprehend black widow Jodie and also Crisp, who has so far eluded justice. On the personal side, Grace is the happy husband of pathologist Cleo and the besotted father of an infant son. But then his first wife, who’d been declared dead, turns up, leaving him with a 10-year-old son he never suspected he had. James juggles his multiple story lines with panache as the action hurtles to a shattering conclusion. Agent: Carole Blake, Blake Friedmann Literary (U.K.). (Oct.)