STAGE REVIEW: Not Dead Enough - at the Festival Theatre, Malvern, from Monday, February 20 to Saturday, February 25, 2017.

THIS is yet another totally top notch and thoroughly entertaining offering from one of the country’s major crime and thriller writers.

Peter James clearly has the gift and this latest stage offering of one of his hugely successful Roy Grace series clearly buffs up his already bright reputation.

This is his third Grace novel to be adapted for the stage by Shaun McKenna, and directed by Ian Talbot, and it is also the second time that Shane Richie has played the Brighton-based Detective Superintendent.

Apparently ITV has a forthcoming adaptation of James' Dead Simple and maybe it could do a lot worse than to cast Richie in the key role of the engaging sleuth.

A winner of a variety of literary awards and also a recipient of crime writing’s highest honour, the Diamond Dagger Award, James’ audiences know they are in safe hands both for entertaining and spine-tingling stories.

This is provided in full measure complete with a neat little undercurrent of humour.

In Not Dead Enough everyone believes they know the guilty party early in the proceedings, but then James takes minds off on a teasing route of twists and turns which steadily sow the seeds of doubt and throw up numerous other possibilities. But do they?

Grace seems equally perplexed, so we are in good company, but as little clues - both past and present - gnaw away, the odds narrow that he will come up trumps and confront the guilty party.

It’s powerful and pacy, rattling along as it does at a fair old lick and it also reveals Grace has human frailties along with the rest of us - haunted as he is by the disappearance of his wife a decade before.

A split three sets in one - appropriately dominated by a mortuary where the action begins and virtually ends - works well as the regular switches from there to the CID office and interview room occur with considerable frequency. And there are plenty of opportunities to warm to or worry about the characters as we learn more about them.

Richie comes over as comfortable in the lead role and receives good support from Laura Whitmore, as love interest Cleo Morey, Michale Quartey as Grace’s put-upon sidekick, Glenn Branson, and Stephen Billington, who plays the beleaguered Brian Bishop, the suspect.

Better known as a TV presenter, this is Whitmore’s stage debut tour and she is making a good fist of it.

Close on a full house clearly enjoyed the fare that was on offer and their generous applause definitely marked the approval rating as high.