The Trouble with Twelfth Grave (Charley Davidson, #12)

by Darynda Jones

[EBookObsessed]

I was happy to get back to an audiobook of this series. Lorelei King does an outstanding job bringing Charley to life.

NOTE: There are spoilers here if you have not finished Book Eleven. If you are still at the beginning of the series, turn away.

I adored this series at the very beginning and talked it up to anyone looking for a recommendation but I have not been so excited about what happened with the series once we started changing Charley from the Grim Reaper to a God from another dimension. Added to that, Reyes Alexander Farrow (Reyes), Charley’s love interest, who turned out to be the son of Satan (Rey’azeel), then turned out to have been created by Satan from the life force of another God (Rey’azikeen). And then he turned out to be the brother of Jehovah, so seems to be a bit jealous of Reyes.

After sucking my friend Christine into the series, she agrees with me that we don’t like where the series is going, but we might just be the only ones. 5 star reviews are everywhere, as well as statement of the best book yet. I can only share my thoughts on this book and series.

I really adored Charley’s ADHD wackiness. Her Private Investigator cases were interesting, add in the supernatural side job as the Grim Reaper, plus hot, dangerous love interest Reyes, and this series was destined for the top of anyone’s Must Read list.

I just haven’t been able to get behind bringing in the God issues, having the Angel Michael coming in to threaten Charley and even bringing in confrontations with God himself. In this book, Garrett gives Charley three childrens books written by a blind child from India which are a thinly veiled prophecy of Charley, Reyes and their daughter, Beep. Of course, in the middle of this desperate need to figure out what is happening, she doesn’t jump to Book 3 and get to the ending of Beep’s book. She peruses her book and Reyes’s book, and barely peeks at Beep’s book as she frantically tries to find Rey’azikeen and figure out what he trying to find.

The Trouble with Twelfth Grave started off with an interesting first chapter more reminiscent of the first Charley Davidson books but it quickly lose that focus.

In the end of the Eleventh book, Reyes decided it would be a great idea to jump into the God Glass (the hell dimension that Jehovah tricked Rey’azikeen into creating with the idea that Jehovah would trap him inside). He doesn’t come out right away and just as Charley is getting desperate enough to jump in after him, the God Glass explodes (creating a hell portal in Charley’s apartment which is growing and will still have to deal with) and Rey’azikeen comes out (not as Reyes). He is now a very angry God and he believe that Charley trapped him in the hell dimension and he pissed off.

He needs to do something but can’t remember what because Reyes is blocking those thoughts or memories from him. He also keeps following Charley around because he can’t understand Reyes’s fascination with Charley.

Charley is brought in by her Uncle Bob to help with these bizarre murder where people are being shredded and which appear a bit supernatural. Charley is having a hard time sleeping because every time she closes her eyes, she is being haunted(?), visited(?) by Reyes or Rey’azikeen who is being seductive and/or trying to get information out of Charley as to what Reyes is hiding and what Rey’azikeen has to find.

It doesn’t take much to guess that the only thing of real importance that Reyes would hide from anyone would be his daughter, Beep, who is currently in hiding away from Charley and Reyes’s enemies. So, it is easy to guess what is trying to find, but what does the very angry god want with baby Beep? Does he want to kill her like Satan does? Does he want to take her to punish Charley for trapping him in the God Glass? What?

I felt the ending of this story was too similar to the end of book eleven that I did an actual eye roll.

Darynda Jones has stated that she will end the series on Book 13 next year. I will definitely read that one, or more appropriately, have one more listen since Lorelei King makes the story that much better, but only because it will be the final book. If the series was going to continue, I might have passed on further books.

The real question will be is there going to be a spin-off with Beep and Osh, and what will it be about?