Grave Dealings

Grave Report Series, Book 3

De: R.R. Virdi

Narrado por: Travis Baldree

"Quick, clean action, solid character work, and pacing. This series is worth your time." (Jim Butcher, number-one New York Times best-selling author of The Dresden Files)

Don't make deals with the paranormal. They're better at it than you, and they never play fair.

Paranormal investigator and soul-without-a-body Vincent Graves did just that - a deal made in desperation. Now it's coming back to bite him in the middle of a case.

He has 57 hours to investigate a string of deaths involving people who've made some devilish bargains. Too bad devils don't deal in good faith. It'd be easy enough, if he didn't have to deal with things such as:

• Being hunted through the streets of Queens by a dark elf with a motorcycle fetish
• Ending up the target of a supernatural hit
• An old acquaintance dragging him to a paranormal ball where he could end up on the menu

And having one of his closest guarded secrets brought to light....

Not great for a tight clock, because if he doesn't get to the bottom of this case in time, Vincent and company might just lose their souls.

Dirty deals are never done dirt cheap. And the supernatural always collect - big!

©2017 R. R. Virdi (P)2021 Tantor

New case, New dangers, New friends

The third book in the series expands Graves' world twice as much as the first and second books. Not just in size but depth. New powers are acknowledged and deals are made, all while Graves and his Two partners for this case attempt to keep more people from dying. The end of the book also sets up a new, darker more powerful enemy hiding in the shadows. I look forward to the next release.

Amazeballs

Killer story, great fun! R.R. Virdi kicks it up a notch with this one for sure. Can't wait for more! Highly recommend!

A Great Read

Before addressing the novel and as a baseline: Terry Pratchett, Douglas Adams, Jim Butcher, and Tolkien are in my top 10 favorites list. If you don't like any of them, disregard this revue. Oh, and seek help, something ain't right.

I haven't read/listened to anything by this author until I started the "Grave" series. An great choice of a moniker for the main character, you can really go to town with murder mystery novels incorporating the word "grave" or even "gravely" if enough books are written. The characters are a lot of fun and, considering the genre, believable. The plot is internally consistent and not really formulaic. The starting premise is great for mystery fans. The main character is tasked with finding and removing a supernatural killer after being inserted into the dead victim's body. The victim's memory only appears in brief flashback visions. There is no clear picture of the cause of death. Not ever.

Kudo's to Audible for making the first novels membership included as freebes. I really hesitate to try an author I don't know with a cash gamble.

Better than most UF but left me wanting more

I wanted more out of the series. More books, more mystery, more depth, more variety. The series wasn't long enough to really world build. Non-human species were, for the most part, not developed enough. The supernaturals at the ball just got tossed in there without nearly enough material to get to know and wonder about them. I got tired of Ortiz and just didn't like her in the end. Vince was a good time but a little too much like Dresden. Speaking of, the number of times someone "arched an eyebrow" was annoying bc I always saw that as sort of a Jim Butcher trademark. Also, Vince's nature made it very difficult to feel tension in combat because Church could theoretically just revive him over and over again. And like I said, I didn't care for Ortiz, so none of the main characters being in danger really mattered to me. I was in it for the mystery only. Having said all that, this beats 90% of the trash out there. Most urban fantasy doesn't even get me thinking enough to warrant a review, so props for that.

Best

Best in the series so far. Story pace isn't as frantic as the first book. The side characters development is on par with the second book. The world development gave more insight than any of the previous parts of the series.

It feels like a love letter to Jim butcher

it's a beautiful peice of work. After reading book 17 ( battleground of dresden files) this what exactly what I needed. thank you 😊

So. Much. Talking.

“Shom break you!”
Vincent: “Yeah, got that. Say it in a Russian accent, huh Drago?”
I loved the first five hours of this book, as would-be assassins come out of the woodwork like Vincent’s been declared Excommunicado. The pop culture and the snark were in fine form.

“If words could bit, those would’ve left marks like a Rottweiler on a mailman’s A.”
I liked the addition of hacker Kelly and was thrilled to see series arc movement as Ortiz is brought in on Vincent’s secret Quatnum Leap missions.

And then the story took a big detour into Fae land and endless scenes about favors, debts, and bargains. Maybe it’ll tie in to later books and the series arc about the master plan, but here, it felt like a snipe hunt. The pop culture references dwindled. The fun withered. My mind wandered,

When the story got back to the original murder mystery, we got even more scenes about favors, debts, and bargains. And talking. So. Much. Talking. Every villain, victim, and Vince himself went on and on about the dangers of deals with supernaturals or the weakness of humans in resisting temptation.
Ugh. It was agony.

And there’s still mere crumbs of information about who Church is and Vincent’s greater purpose.
I’ve already lost interest in the blah blah ‘there’s a war coming’ blah blah blather.
If there’s ever a fourth book in Audible, I’ll give it a chance, hoping it will lean into the pulpy standalone murder mystery fun and dispense with the series arc clickbait.
And less talking. Please Cthulhu, let there be less talking.

Getting less interesting

I liked the very original and creative concept when I read the first book, but the subsequent novels have somewhat diminished over time.

First, the protagonist's repeated resurrections in the same city to encounter the same FBI agent feels very forced. In the first book she felt more like she started as an NYPD officer and even acted like one. I hoped her being an FBI agent would mean she could appear on other locations, but that never happened because he never returns in a different country or even a different state, which raises some question, are there more of him in other parts of the world?

By the second book, the presence of Cortez has already become tiresome, and her return in the third book stretches the credibility. It's like James Bond running into the same woman in every movie. It would start to feel too forced. The introduction of the newest character in this one only exacerbates the issue. To me, she was irritating to the point I was hoping for her demise to elevate the stakes.

This brings me to the series' fundamental flaw.

The main character feels like he's straight from 80's action movies, and that's a good thing to me. I can't help but envision Eddie McClintock as the story progresses. Since this feels like the goal is a visual adaptation I think a more mature Tom Holland would work, but he changes bodies. Not that the voice actor changes the character voice, so I keep picturing the same person and forgetting he's in a different body. His near-immortality also kills and tension. The countdown element feels pointless. At first it was a great device, but there doesn't seem to be a penalty for his failure and he never fails. These things kind of remove all the risk and make them moot.