This is the second installment of crime writer Peter James' DS Roy Grace series, and is a fine follow-up to the fast-paced action and gripping plotting of the opener, Dead Simple. Once again set in Brighton and advancing the story of Grace, a detective-by-numbers character with a heap of baggage and a knack for crimebusting, Looking Good Dead opens with a commuter named Tom Bryce discovering a unlabeled DVD on the train back from London.

In an attempt to trace the owner of the disc, Bryce sticks the DVD in his computer and watches in shock as he watches the exeuction of a man. He is considering going to the police with his discovery when the makers of the film track him down, and issue a clear threat; contact the police and we'll come after you.

Being a moral, upstanding fellow, Bryce declines to follow this advice and throws himself and his family into a web of darkness and intrigue which Grace will be hard-pressed to extract them from.

Every bit as gripping as the first book, Looking Good Dead is in some ways better than its predecessor - the characters have certainly started to grow here, and the over-familiar character types feel less hackneyed as they start to develop their own personalities. James is a talented writer, and does well to balance a tense plot with a noir-lite character study. This is as far as I've read in the series, but I'm looking forward to book three.