Published January 31, 2012
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Format: audiobook, borrowed from the library
Genre: urban fantasy
To Buy: Amazon * Barnes & Noble
Rating: 4.5 STARS
(From Goodreads) Paranormal private eye. Grim reaper extraordinaire. Whatever. Charley Davidson is back! And she's drinking copious amounts of caffeine to stay awake because, every time she closes her eyes, she sees him: Reyes Farrow, the part-human, part-supermodel son of Satan. Yes, she did imprison him for all eternity, but come on. How is she supposed to solve a missing persons case, deal with an ego-driven doctor, calm her curmudgeonly dad, and take on a motorcycle gang hell-bent on murder when the devil's son just won't give up?
You know how some series start out totally awesome, and each book progressively seems to lose its edge a little more? They become a little less compelling, a little less interesting, a little less awesome with each installment.
Yeah. This is NOT that series.
I have to admit. At the close of the second Charley Davidson book, I was waffling. Although I absolutely LOVE the crime mystery aspect and the grim reaper thing is pretty cool, to be honest, the excessive use of snark was starting to cross the line from cute and endearing into silly and ridiculous. And the thing with Reyes was moving sooooooo slooooooooow.
But... BUT... Third Grave Dead Ahead came at me and whacked me up along side the head. Charley still had a mega mystery to solve and Reyes to deal with and body parts to name, yet it also seems like Charley's maturing a little, dare I say? I still found myself laughing, yet, amazingly, in parts I found myself crying too. Crazy, right?
Third Grave Dead Ahead was exactly what this series needed. It introduced a few new characters in the form of Artemis, Donovan, Eric and Michael. It injected some life into Charley's and Reyes' relationship (or, anti-relationship? I haven't decided. It's definitely non-traditional.). And it gave Charley some seriously HUGE reasons to get serious.
The mysteries were really good ones, as usual. Charley's looking for a missing woman and a potentially missing man. In typical Charley fashion, she takes tons of unnecessary risks and goes to extraordinary extremes to get what she wants. She loves her BFF Cookie and her family fiercely and continues her love affair with her coffee machine. This book wasn't so different that it wasn't unrecognizable.
This was the best book of the series so far. And it makes me so excited to keep reading and see what happens next.
2 comments:
Heh. You said waffling. :-P
Great review!
I knew you'd like that. :)
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