Eighth Grave After Darkby Darynda Jones
Rating: ★★★★½
isbn: 9781250045652
Series: Charlie Davidson #8
Publication Date: May 5, 2015
Pages: 293
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Charley Davidson has enough going on without having to worry about twelve hellhounds hot on her trail. She is, after all, incredibly pregnant and feeling like she could pop at any moment. But, just her luck, twelve deadly beasts from hell have chosen this time to escape onto our plane, and they've made Charley their target. And so she takes refuge at the only place she thinks they can't get to her: the grounds of an abandoned convent. Of course, if hellhounds aren't enough, Charley also has a new case to hold her attention: the decades-old murder of a newly-vowed nun she keeps seeing in the shadows of the convent.
Add to that the still unsolved murder of her father, the strange behavior of her husband, and Charley's tendency to attract the, shall we say, undead, and she has her hands full...but also tied.
I knew (sort of) how this one ended and had put off starting it until the release of the ninth book was closer, but actually it’s not quite as cliff-hanging an ending as I was expecting.
I love this series; I love the humour, the snark, and the inclusion of a lot of old Christian mythology. I like the way the author conveys the horror of bad things happening without making the reader wallow in it.
Eighth Grave After Dark is both the culmination and the deepening of the overall story arc. We have the ultimate family reunion in addition to the cold and hot cases Charley is trying to solve. Reyes becomes a bit more human too, if you’ll excuse the expression. The author’s depiction of hell brought to mind scenes from Constantine and were incredibly effective.
The ending is … ok. It’s a neat and tidy way of getting around what might have proven problematic in future plots, but it works for me. I’m very much looking forward to the ninth book.