Sorry I've been away.........

Life sometimes gets pretty challenging and things fall by the wayside. This has been one of those periods and the blog has been the casualty. Now that I once again have some time and things have settled down, I plan to do a lot more blogging. It isn't that I haven't been reading-- life never gets so challenging that I give up reading!! At least not yet. My first review of 2012 is Third Grave Dead Ahead, # 3 of the Charley Davidson series by Darynda Jones.

  






THIRD GRAVE DEAD AHEAD
Darynda Jones
Macmillan Audio, Lorelei King narr.
January 2012








Darynda Jones once again had me alternating between laughter and nail-biting with Third Grave Dead Ahead, #3 in the Charley Davidson series. Charley is not only a dogged and inspired P.I., but also The Grim Reaper. As The Grim Reaper she helps spirits who can't seem to "pass over" usually because of some unfinished business.


As usual, Third Grave Dead Ahead combines working on a case for the living in tandem with her more supernatural concerns. She is approached by a husband who wants to hire her to find his missing wife but she refuses his money and works on the case on her own. She can tell he knows more than he is saying and thinks he is responsible. Besides that, Reyes (Son of Satan, Charley's lifetime guardian, love interest and drop-dead gorgeous) is seriously angry with her. In book # 2 she bound his incorporeal form to his corporeal one and Reyes doesn't like that one bit. Never mind that she had good reasons even though she doesn't know how she did it or how to undo it!


In the course of the book, we have as Cookie says, Charley taking up insommnia as a hobby, prison break-outs, introductions to biker gangs and an almost fatal run-in with a figure from Reyes' past. We get to meet Mistress Marigold at last and find out why Owen Vaughn tried to run over Charley in his father's SUV while they were in high school. The characters in the books are wonderfully realized and one of the major attractions. I can't say that I was too happy with Reyes in this book and Charley's father manages to betray her again. I really wonder if there is some sort of supernatural influence on him, or if he is just a jerk.


I highly recommend this audio version of Third Grave Dead Ahead. Lorelei King is a fabulous narrator, the perfect voice for Charley and the extended cast of characters.



Rating-  5 Stars and Scythes