New author for me. I'll be reading all in the series if they stay as good. ( )

Se suponía que sería una broma inofensiva, pero algo ocurrió. Michael Harrison ha desaparecido y cuatro de sus amigos han muerto. Faltaban tres días para su boda y Ashley Harper, su prometida, contacta al detective Grace, un hombre atormentado por el recuerdo de su mujer desaparrecida, para pedirle ayuda. Pronto, Grace descubrirá que la única persona que conoce el paradero de Michael no tiene intención de hablar... al menos de momento.

Wow, what a ride this was. To be honest, at first I wondered if I really wanted to finish the book. We get a strong dose of knowing how dumb these young men are right off as they proceed to get rip-roaring drunk and carry out a get-even prank on their friend who is getting married, and who has gone overboard in the past with pranks against others. They're all pretty dumb, it seems, as the prank simply screams "NO!" all the way. It was so dumb, I didn't care what happened to any of them at first.

However... as the story progressed, there were a few surprises, or should I say levels of surprises. First there's one surprise that isn't that unbelievable, then the next level starts getting more interesting. By the end, the whole story has turned upside down, and nothing is what anyone was expecting. By then, I found that I couldn't stop reading, and had to finish in one long downhill slalom.

I think this is worth 4 1/2 stars; I subtract a half star for the use of fortune tellers to solve crimes. To me, this is like an easy way out, where clues be damned, let's just use magic. ( )

Exciting, gripping opening quickly devolved into nothing much happening at all. The lack of interesting developments was exacerbated by the super-short chapters which highlight that there was really no need to be cutting between scenes so frantically. 100 pages in it just wasn't doing it for me, life's too short. ( )

A group of young men are out on a pub crawl stag-do. When the groom-to-be is sufficiently sozzled his four friends put him in a coffin and bury him with a breathing tube and a two-way radio. They intend to have more booze and return for him in a couple of hours but the drunken idiots get into a massive traffic accident where three are killed outright and the fourth is critically injured and died soon afterwards. After an opening like that I couldn't put it down and finished the hefty paperback in less than 24 hours.

It was a gripping story although I have a few quibbles with some details as well as the police investigation that was littered with missed opportunities. James' use of spiritualists was a bit over the top too. Even I was able to figure out the motive very early, no medium required. However, although not particularly well-written, it was a page-turner and the suspense was fierce. The first in what looks like a promising series featuring Roy James in Brighton. I will probably read more at sometime. ( )