Eleventh Grave in Moonlight

November 28, 2016
Jones’s lively 11th novel featuring PI grim reaper Charley Davidson (after 2016’s The Curse of Tenth Grave) finds her highly enjoyable established cast of characters doing their usual things, including lots of argument-fueled, lightly supernatural sex between Charley and her husband, Son of Satan Reyes Farrow, and a few confused dead people using Charley to pass over to the other side. But at this point, strenuous efforts to ratchet up the stakes of Charley’s cosmic saga have diffused the series into an endless soap opera that plays out on the human and celestial stages, making this entry a less than memorable transition toward the next piece of the story. Paranormal PI lovers may be disappointed at the blandness of the main investigations: a chase down of the stereotyped religious zealots who were Reyes’s original adoptive parents and a red herring of a stalker plot for Charlie’s coworker’s daughter, Amber. Still, Uncle Bob fans will be glad to see him take some strong stands. Agent: Alexandra Machinist, ICM Partners.

November 15, 2016
Now that the Grim Reaper has become a god, she's having a hard time dealing with her new powers.Whatever else you can say about it, Charley Davidson's life isn't dull. Charley, aka the Grim Reaper, moonlights as a private eye, occasionally helping out the Albuquerque police in the form of her Uncle Bob, who's currently marked for death. She and her strikingly handsome husband, Reyes Alexander Farrow, aka Rey'aziel, son of Satan, have had to send away their daughter to protect her from a dangerous god who wants her dead. The new case she's taken up over Reyes' objections is the search for the birth parents of Reyes' sort-of-brother, Shawn, who was raised by the Fosters, the vile people who kidnapped both boys, kept Shawn, and sold Reyes to a monster. The disappearance of another child suggests they may be up to their old tricks. At the same time, Charley and Uncle Bob have set up a sting operation to try to catch whomever is sending sexually threatening text messages to Charley's niece, Amber. While Reyes, who's not above using hot sex to influence Charley, does all he can to get her to drop the investigation into the Fosters, he's also trying to teach her how to use her powers as a god. Charley, who's constantly being watched by angels after threatening the Almighty, stubbornly refuses to give up. To her horror, a lot of innocent people get hurt along the way. The 11th from Jones (The Curse of Tenth Grave, 2016, etc.) is densely packed with supernatural problems, sex scenes not for the timid, and assorted complicated mysteries. Boning up on the 10 proceeding installments may be a prerequisite for making sense of this one.

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September 1, 2016

Grim Reaper and part-time private eye Charley Davidson is back, getting reconciled to the discovery that she's a goddess and that her daughter has been born to save the world. Alas, forces from hell itself want her banished to another dimension.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.