First Grave on the Right

by Darynda Jones
Scott County Library audiobook 8 CDs
read by Lorelei King
genre: paranormal mystery fiction

This was fun, but won't become a series I go back to. What I liked: the humor and mystery, as well as the fact that I listened to the first two discs with my sister Louise who *loved* the main character and the author's style.

What I didn't like: the cavalier attitude toward Heaven and Hell, God and Satan . . . that was not apparent at first and yet I couldn't get past it.

"Charley Davidson is a part-time private investigator and full-time grim reaper. Meaning, she sees dead people. Really. And it's her job to convince them to 'go into the light.'"

There were many funny lines and parts in the story. (I loved when she called her Uncle Bob "UB" / "Eubie" . . . ) And I was very curious about the "whodunnit" aspects of the story. But I thought her having sex with an incorporeal being was a bit too odd . . . especially when I found out the connections.

I made a cheat sheet about her encounters with "The Big Bad" as I was reading - the day of her birth, when she was four years old and abducted, when she was five years old with the Johnson girl, in high school when a guy tried to run her down with his dad's SUV, in college when a guy attacked her. When she met with Reyes' sister, it was nice to have a little clarity.