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But For The Grace
  • Published: 9 June 2026
  • ISBN: 9781804961391
  • Imprint: Penguin
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 352
  • RRP: $24.99
Categories:

But For The Grace

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A million-copy-selling crime writer comes into print for the first time. In the second book of A DC Smith / Kings Lake Investigation Series, death in old age shouldn’t be suspicious. DC Smith thinks this one is.

\"We are living in the departure lounge,\" said Ralph Greenwood, \"and flights leave with monotonous regularity.\" So when another resident of the Rosemary House care home is found dead in her chair one Saturday evening in December, no-one is very surprised – not until the results of a routine post-mortem reveal something extraordinary.

Police Sergeant DC Smith and his team have to tread carefully as they investigate what took place, and Smith himself has to confront some difficult memories. Others, meanwhile, seem intent on getting him to leave the force altogether, while, despite his best efforts, his social life also becomes a little more complicated.

To top it all, Kings Lake has been waiting weeks for the snow to fall, in a winter that seems as if it will never end...
  • Published: 9 June 2026
  • ISBN: 9781804961391
  • Imprint: Penguin
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 352
  • RRP: $24.99
Categories:

About the author

Peter Grainger

Peter Grainger is the 'creator of the greatest fictional sleuth you’ve probably never heard of' (FT magazine). A former sixth-form English teacher, Peter is the author of 23 self-published novels, 19 of which are now scheduled for release by major British and North American publishers. Peter lives with his wife, sometimes a grandson and a dog in a cottage in the Cambridgeshire fens. He travels as often as possible to the Norfolk coast he once called home.
PG

Also by Peter Grainger

A Private Investigation
Roxanne
Songbird
The Truth
On Eden Street
In This Bright Future
The Rags of Time
See all

Praise for But For The Grace

Once I was ensconced in Kings Lake, in the company of Smith and his team, I didn’t want to leave … What sets Grainger’s books apart from the typical police procedural is the fully realised characters, who appear to live in a gentler world, on a time continuum that makes sense, progressing and evolving from book to book.

Financial TImes

The books are comforting, the writing is subtle and the plots are gripping.

The TImes

A slow-burning mystery with an intelligence of its own, driven by strong characters and thought-provoking questions about humanity. Fans of Louise Penny's Three Pines series or Richard Osman's Thursday Murder Club are sure to appreciate this series as well.

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