Fifth Grave Past the Light by Darynda Jones, Narrator Lorelei King

Fifth Grave Past the Light
by Darynda Jones
Narrator Lorelei King
9 hours
Macmillan audio

Fifth Grave Past the Light Darynda Jones

                                                   

Narrator Lorelei King

Lovely Lorelei King, one of the shining stars of narrators, her voice is always   crystal clear and expressive. It is always such a pleasure listening to a book Ms. King narrates as she does not just read the book but puts her all into developing each character and their role beyond anything one could hope for. So wonderful at emotional parts as well as the, up the stream sex scenes, and the sex romps in all of this series once were called pornographic, but King manages to give a balance to them all, taking some of the singe out of them. I feel less scorched with her rendition of them. I easily recognize Lorelei's voice, she is skillful enough to not sound like characters from other books like Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series, where her characterizations are nothing short of stunning. Lorelei King renders every book as if it was the one and only ever, like a lover giving their total attention to the beloved.

Book Review: Fifth Grave Past the Light, Darynda Jones

Fifth Grave Past the Light was the best in the series, I liked the first one, but felt this one really stands out in many ways, from it being well written, lots of content and characters that are bursting with personality. Did I mention funny? What a wild imagination Ms. Jones has, with Charley Davidson. Charley can barely move through her own apartment for the amount of ghosts that are hanging around. Take that literally, there are at least nine, female ghosts of all ages, hanging from the ceiling and hiding under the bed and poor Charley has to shower with a ghost in the shower. One ghost in particular turns out to be neither missing or dead but very much alive and working.



I know us mere mortal humans would have a hard time with this. One ghost would send us scurrying in fright but Charley is a supernatural being and a beacon for lost souls, can just shrug it off and consider it all in a days work. While she's trying to investigate how to help all these traumatized souls in her apartment she is also working on a case of serial arsons. Worse, her lover, Reyes Farrow is her main suspect. Busy girl that Charley is, she manages to work concurrently on cheating spouse cases. Getting evidence of a cheater is much easier today with all the great tech toys available and with her naive assistant Cookie helping, it's a piece of cake, or so she thinks when they gussy themselves up to hit the bar and gather their evidence. Cookie just is not sophisticated enough to pull it off and everything goes awry when the cheater discovers the tiny microphone that Charley discreetly tucked into her scarf.

Darynda Jones

The workload and stress escalates when Captain Eckhart starts showing up and badgering Charley about her status at APD, the police department as a consultant. His interest in her was peaked when she solved four cases in one day. That really brought her to his attention and he becomes obsessed with finding out more about her. Especially once he discovers she's been assisting on solving crimes since she was five. Seems that would be enough to intrigue anyone. Angel her thirteen year old ghost detective is pressing her to give his mother more money every month. An arrangement he struck up with Charley when he died.

All in all this is a action packed, tilt a whirl ride from beginning to end. Best to start with the first book in the series, First Grave on the Right. I liked all in the series but the first and the fifth are the best. Lots of creative energy going on and unrestrained laughing. The only thing I'd prefer is less graphic sex, although Reyes Farrow, bad boy though handsome, sexy and a sweep them off their feet kind of guy the sex is just too intense and graphic for my taste. I suspect Reyes is not the son of the devil but being deceived somehow to think he is. Even if he is too hot to handle.