Fifth Grave Past the Light (Charley Davidson) by Darynda Jones Edition: Hardcover Price: $15.80 Another Fantastic Book in This Series,

Release date: July 9, 2013 | Series: Charley Davidson (Book 5)

"Never underestimate the power of a woman
on a double espresso with a mocha latte chaser high.
                                                —T-shirt
Charley Davidson isn’t your everyday, run-of-the-mill grim reaper.  She’s more of a paranormal private eye/grim reaper extraordinaire.  However, she gets sidetracked when the sexy, sultry son of Satan, Reyes Farrow, moves in next door. To further complicate matters, Reyes is her main suspect in an arson case.  Charley has vowed to stay away from him until she can find out the truth…but then dead women start appearing in her apartment, one after another, each lost, confused, and terrified beyond reason.  When it becomes apparent that her own sister, Gemma, is the serial killer’s next target Charley has no choice but to ask for Reyes’ help.  Arsonist or not, he’s the one man alive who could protect Gemma no matter who or what came at her. But he wants something in return. Charley. All of her, body and soul. And to keep her sister safe, it is a price she is willing to pay."

Holy Moley! What another fantastic book in this series. If you were thinking that you could jump right in without reading the other books in this series, even though Ms. Jones does a fantastic job adding back-story to each book, it would really be better for you to start right with the first book. You will be hooked on this series from book one and this book will make much more sense to you. This book is a fine mix of Mystery, Speculative fiction, Comedy and action with just the tiniest slightest soupcon of Chick Lit thrown in just to keep things shakin'.

This story is told with the usual humor and irreverence that Charley is known for. However, Charley seems to have grown a bit now, she is funny but seems just a tad more mature than in past books. Do not fret though, there are still plenty of scenes that will have the people around you looking at you as if you were nuts as you laugh hysterically through parts of this.

There is so much going on that it would be very difficult for me to re-cap without giving away too many spoilers, I will say that we end on a bit of a shocker, a sort of cliff-hanger, but not (if you know what I mean!)

Things are heating up at Calamity's the cop hangout. All of a sudden, the place is over-run with women! It will not be difficult for you to figure out why, but it is a lot of fun watching Charley stumble around the answer.

At this time, Charley also has more than twenty different women of all ages hanging around her apartment - not quite ready to pass over. There is an arsonist on the move and Charley suspects Reyes (naturally!) Then Charley realizes who it really is and things sort of heat up from there. There may be a serial killer on the loose. Could Gemma, Charley's sister be next?
There are tons of spectacularly erotic scenes, a lot of real love, danger, pain, Captain Eckert suspecting Charley of something, and Rocket predicting something not so nice for Reyes.

This book was the usual fun, funny, sexy, quick read that you will not want to put down until you are done. If you took the best of MaryJanice Davidson's early Betsy the Vampire Queen and melded it with Janet Evanoviches, Stephnie Plum---you still would not get half the laughs, half the mystery or half the fun.