Dead Simple (Roy Grace Series #1)

Michael Harrison had it all: good looks, charm, natural leadership, a wicked sense of humor, and now Ashley, his fiancee. While out celebrating with a group of friends a few nights before the wedding, Michael suddenly and unexpectedly finds himself enclosed in a coffin equipped only with a flashlight, a dirty magazine, a walkie-talkie, and a tiny breathing tube. It's all in good fun — payback for the grief his buddies had suffered at the hands of his own penchant for tomfoolery — that is, until his four buddies are killed in a drunk driving accident just moments after leaving Michael buried alive in his coffin.
Detective Superintendent Grace — himself dealing with the pain of losing a wife — is brought on to the case when Ashley reports Michael missing. Suspicions are raised when Michael's only friend not at the bachelor party refuses to cooperate and Ashley's faithfulness — not to mention her increasingly mysterious past — are suddenly thrown into question. As Superintendent Grace soon discovers, one man's disaster is another man's fortune ...dead simple.