It’s probably not a great sign when a journey home after a supposed crime thriller has you compounding the plot holes and logical inconsistencies in your mind. Rather than piecing together and remembering all the clever foreshadowing and subtle hints you realise you were being fed over the course of the piece, you instead ruminate on some variant of well hang on, what was the point of that?

Peter James is back in Birmingham, as another of his popular, pulpy crime novels gets a stage adaptation, complete with the usual slew of vaguely familiar TV faces propping up the marketing. Where The Perfect Murder saw Eastenders favourites Shane Richie and Jessie Wallace reunite, 2021’s Looking Good Dead pulled a similar soapy feat with Adam Woodyatt and Laurie Brett (also of ‘Enders fame) teaming up.

For 2025’s offering, Picture You Dead, a veritable smorgasbord from the likes of Emmerdale, Casualty and even Strictly Come Dancing stuff out the line up.

The premise alone is quintessential, high-concept James, as a young couple find themselves embroiled in sinister goings-on after they inadvertently stumble upon what may be a long-lost masterpiece at a local car boot sale. Forgeries, murder and the dark underbelly of the art world come to envelop the pair, all as James’ DSI Roy Grace (a returning George Rainsford) races to solve an historic, unsolved murder that may or may not be connected.

The initial flourishes of Dead prove intriguing enough. The concept of forgeries and fakery puts an audience weened on Netflix true crime and golden age television on high alert from the off. It’s likely that alarm bells will ring early on when a seemingly charming ‘copyist’ offers to look after this prized painting for a few days.

And yet, for all of its attempt to slowly ratchet up the tension and uncertainty, the ultimate realisation is that Picture You Dead is, frankly, nowhere near as smart as it seems to think it is.

It certainly doesn’t help that, as mentioned earlier, the sheer abundance of plot holes and chasms of logic seem to only refresh with each passing scene. Sure, you may have managed to get a very impressive copy of your painting made, but do you really want to hang it on your living room wall for any visitor or passing burglar to see?

Why exactly is this villain engaging in some elaborate, Kevin McAllister-esque scheme involving donuts and insulin jabs when they are already brandishing a pistol and could just threaten to shoot their target instead?

Surely this other scallywag’s threat to set a captive aflame in the middle of his collection of priceless paintings is a little… hollow?

It doesn’t help that the direction feels similarly hokey, too. Picture You Dead whips about like a tonal hurricane, with moments that should feel intimidating and fraught with peril coming across as hammy and camp. Elsewhere, scenes are awkwardly lingered on for so long after their conclusion that one begins to suspect an about turn that never comes. And let’s not even get started on some of the questionable choices of LGBT representation and performance.

“Picture You Dead whips about like a tonal hurricane, with moments that should feel intimidating and fraught with peril coming across as hammy and camp.”

Some of the cast do their best with the wobbly material they’re served. Mark Oxtoby and Sean Jones both give good loveable rogue, and Gemma Stroyan is at least earnest as Grace’s sidekick and second in command. Rainsford feels like a walking cypher of your de facto superintendent, with precious little to do except sternly pontificate and spout exposition on autopilot. Ben Cutler shows moments of promise as one half of the genuinely overwhelmed young couple whose find kicks off the dangerous series of events, but Fiona Wade is more wooden than most of the picture frames on the set.

If Strictly fave Ore Oduba seems to at least be having fun as a machiavellian art collector, and is good for the odd titter, the character is still so jarringly camp and unthreatening that the whole subplot regularly feels pulled from a production of Carry On Criminal. Spare a thought for the talented Jodie Steele, who does her absolute best and gives arguably the best performance of the night as a ruthless contractor, but inherents most of the silliest beats to try and pass off.

If you can disengage your critical faculties and don’t mind some acting that can bandy from hammy to downright mahogany, Picture You Dead is an evening of watchable nonsense. At the very least, it looks handsome enough, with Adrian Linford’s set a surprisingly versatile beast.

But James churns out his thrillers with conveyor belt efficiency, and in Picture You Dead it truly shows. Pluck too hard on any of its threads, or let yourself get carried away with too many theories or expectations and it rapidly untangles into a contradictory, jarring mess, which for many will be a death knell in the current climate of sophisticated, intelligent thrillers.

There are glimmers of an interesting picture occasionally being painted here, and a couple of brushstrokes and performances to admire, but on appraisal it’d be fairly criminal to go anywhere near calling Picture You Dead a masterpiece.

Leave it at the car boot, where it belongs.