Alice James
Solaris, 15 August 2023
Available as: PB, 336pp, e, audio
Source: Advance copy
ISBN(PB): 9781786188434
I'm grateful to Alice James herself for sending me an e-copy of Grave Suspicions to consider for review.
If you've read Alice's previous two books, Grave Secrets and Grave Danger, you'll have some idea what to expect. Crime. Necromancy. Estate agenting. Vampires. Shagging. And poor Toni having yet another new outfit ruined by a would-be murderer or the irate undead.
And indeed, Grave Suspicions delivers on all three.
There is, though, a lot more to it than that.
Yes, Toni's romantic life remains as tangled and hopeless as ever - her heart lost to Peter who's showing no sign of returning from Germany, while she takes solace as she can. And yes, she does her best to avoid abusive ex, vampire Oscar, while trying to help her policeman brother Will with yet another hard-to-crack case by raising the victim in the morgue. But she's also finding out more about her own past, and that of her family; about the parents who turned away from her; about her connection to the vampires.
And some part of that past comes reaching out to her, in the form of a pair of thugs who seem to think she's got something of theirs.
The county coroner is also trying to corner Toni - she has no idea what that's about.
And she's as short of money as ever...
It was, simply, sheer joy to return to this world of modern rural fantasy featuring my favourite down-to-earth heroine, as Alice James creates perhaps the most deadly combination of threats for her yet. Being Toni Windsor always meant living with multiply interlocking mysteries and complications, but I think this third book takes things to a new level as seeds planted in the earlier books begin to spout. There's there's a new richness to the story. It is both more complex and at the same time more focussed than the earlier stories, if that makes sense.
Also, Toni is gaining in power and confidence, which is great to see, but she is also being matched against trickier and more lethal opponents. If this were a role playing game, I'd say Alice James is the ideal dungeon mistress, and I very much look forward to seeing what new monsters lurk in future instalments (I think I can guess at one of them, quietly growing in plain sight). But more than that, it's how fascinating how Alice and her team are also meshing and working together
So - in Grave Suspicions we have Peril, we have Revelations and of course, we have the ruin of a series of outfits (it's no wonder Toni is always short of money). But there's more still! This book also features a classic locked room mystery, which provided a genuine puzzle and brought the crime aspect of this story rather to the fore. As ever, the writing sparkles, Toni's observations of life, love and rural society always spot on. In short, the book is a bewildering mix, but in a very good way, and I'd strongly recommend it (and its predecessors if you haven't got to them yet).
For more information about Grave Suspicions, see the publisher's website here.
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