Michael Harrison's friends decided it would be funny to bury him alive as a stag night prank. Unfortunately, they were killed in a car accident before they could retrieve him, leaving the man buried in an unknown location just days before his wedding. DS Roy Grace sets out to help his beautiful, distraught fiancee. James has also served two terms as Chair of the UK Crime Writers Association, and is also a board member of International Thriller Writers in the United States. What’s next for Roy Grace?

Immortal Hulk is Ewing’s best work, and Immortal Hulk #25 is a cosmic sci-fi/horror hybrid that takes readers to a future iteration of the Marvel Universe where Hulk has inherited the mantle of Galactus as the “Breaker of Worlds,” a monster that literally punches through planets. Featuring stunning artwork from Germán García and Chris O’Halloran, this issue gives readers a taste of the terror in store for Georges Malik and crew if they do find a living god. When a major Hollywood movie begins filming in Brighton, it has the potential to mean big things for the local area. Unfortunately, star Gaia is being pursued by a stalker – and DS Roy Grace is tasked with finding the stalker before something goes terribly wrong. Detective Superintendent Roy Grace is brought on to the case and grows suspicious when the one friend who wasn’t out celebrating refuses to collaborate on the case. All of a sudden, a motive surfaces, and Michael’s near accident may not be so accidental after all. In Looking Good Dead, published in 2006, Tom Bryce finds an apparently lost cd and decides to try to return it to its owner. But when his mission to return the cd leads to him witnessing a ghastly homicide, his family is threatened if he decides to go to the police. Meanwhile, Roy Grace is still haunted by his missing wife. It’s been nearly ten years since she disappeared. Though advised to change her identity and go into hiding, Carly feels the killer would find her regardless of her actions – so if the police can't find the killer, she'll have to take matters into her own hands. DS Roy Grace is sure Brian Bishop murdered his socialite wife. The only problem? He was sixty miles away, asleep in bed at the time of the murder. Has someone stolen Bishop's identity, or is he just a very clever killer?In the aftermath of 9/11, a failed Brighton businessman sees an opportunity to shed his debts, disappear, and reinvent himself in another country. If you like courtroom dramas, then Find Them Dead may work better for you than it did for me. But while I enjoyed appearances from familiar faces such as acting DI Norman Potting – a character who James has skilfully turned from a figure of fun into an impressive operator – I wanted more of what the author excels at. And that’s rigorous police procedurals.

Central to the series is Detective Superintendent Roy Grace, a no-nonsense and dogged cop, supported by a thoroughly capable team, including his best mate DI Glenn Branson. What it boils down to this time out, though, is that there’s nowhere near enough of the police team and too much attention paid to characters in whom it’s difficult to get invested. After being involved in a fatal traffic accident, Carly Chase receives word that the drivers of the other two vehicles have been tortured and murdered. DS Roy Grace has warned her that she could be next. Ewing describes WOFTWTD as an expansion of themes he’s explored in his corporate work — cosmic entities, gods, death, religion — but he can go further than he can in a shared universe where he has to “leave the idea-space reasonably tidy for others.” The climate crisis roots this story in a pressing real-world issue, and Ewing can double-down on socio-political commentary when he doesn’t have to assuage corporate overlords. Is there any required reading? James is very active in his community. He has been involved in twenty-six movies (including The Merchant of Venice), is a chairman of the Brighton and Hove Drugs Commission, helps out with the local neighborhood watch, is an Ambassador for Brighton University, and helps with Action Medical Research. He also donated a police car to the Sussex Police in 2008. Al Ewing has achieved a level of prestige and popularity at Marvel Comics that makes a creator-owned endeavor more lucrative, and Boom! Studios has become serious competition to Image Comics as the place where Marvel and DC writers take their creator-owned titles. (Other recent examples include Brian Azzarello’s Faithless, Kieron Gillen’s Once And Future, and Tom Taylor’s Seven Secrets.) Simone Di Meo’s profile has also steadily risen — he’s drawing Marvel’s new Champions series written by Eve L. Ewing, debuting in November — and he had a significant hit in the MMPR/TMNT crossover, which was the top-selling Boom! series each month of its publication.

Book 5 | Dead Tomorrow

Many characters in the Roy Grace books turn to Grace as a kind of shining light in their time of darkness. His personable appearance and kind heart makes him easy for victims to talk to and trust, and Grace delivers on that trust nearly every time. DS Grace will set off on a trail that leads him from the shady antiques scene in Brighton to Europe and New York as he pursues the killer.