Cocktail Society Book Club: Third Grave Dead Ahead - Darynda Jones

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Each month, the members of the Cocktail Society Book Club will read the selection and then meet back here, on Cocktails and Books, to discuss it on the first Wednesday of every month.  For each book, we'll have an associated cocktail, because why have a Cocktail Society if we aren't going to drink!!!

Sound fun?  Join us and see what fun it is to have a cocktail with your book!  Grab the button and link up with us below, sharing your thoughts on this month's selection.  

Don't have a blog, don't worry.  Join the discussion here in the comments section.  It's sure to be lively.

This Month's Read:   Third Grave Dead Ahead by Darynda Jones
Series:  Charley Davidson #3
Release Date:  January 31, 2012
Publisher:  St. Martin's Press
Page Count:  350
This Month's Host:    Shannon from Cocktails and Books
This Month's Cocktail: Bacchus Espresso Martini

There are many attempts at an Espresso Martini out there (see a few below), but it was one that I had after dinner at the Bacchus Restaurant in St. Croix, Virgin Islands that was the best by far. I think it was the combination of Cruzan's Vanilla Rum and strong, fresh brewed coffee that set this one apart as spectacular. When you're making this, be sure to allow your coffee to chill while also making sure it is fresh - if the coffee's hot the ice in the shaker will melt almost instantly.

Ingredients: 
2 oz Cruzan Vanilla Rum
1 3/4 oz Kahlua coffee liqueur
1 1/2 oz strong coffee, chilled

Preparation: 
Pour the ingredients into a cocktail shaker filled with ice.
Shake well.
Strain into a well-chilled cocktail glass.

Book Blurb

Charley Davidson—grim reaper extraordinaire, private investigator . . . meh—is practicing her profession under the influence, caffeine and copious amounts of it, due to an extreme desire to induce insomnia. Every time she closes her eyes, Reyes Farrow, the part-human, part-supermodel son of Satan, is there. Only thing is, he’s a tad peeved. She did bind for all eternity, so it’s hard blame him. But 13 days without a wink is bound to bring out the crazy in a girl. So, when a man hires her to find his wife, Charley accepts the job with one goal in mind: Put the man behind bars, and not the wet kind. She can sense the guilt waft off him and vows to find the woman’s body and prove he’s a murderer.
In the meantime, Reyes is back in prison and none too happy about it . . . so Charley thinks, until she is carjacked by the dark-haired rake, who swears the very man he went to prison for killing is not only alive, but close by. And he wants Charley to find him.
While a visit to her old friend Rocket sheds no light on Reyes’s situation, Charley finds out the man’s wife is still alive and time is running out. Finding her before she dies would be a miracle, but she has to try. Together with the help of a fashion-impaired receptionist named Cookie, Charley sets out to bring the bad guys to justice. She just hopes Reyes is not one of them. And that she’s not hallucinating from her self-induced bout with insomnia.

Hosts Thoughts
This is my absolute favorite book in the series.  Charley is still her wise cracking, smart ass self, but she's also starting to show she's made of.  She's standing up for what she believes in, even if some of the people she holds dear to her don't agree. 

Since Charley's job is as a PI, we do have a case that she needs to be solved (missing wife, presumed dead and killed by her slimy doctor husband) but Reyes also breaks his silence and summons Charley to the prison asking her to help him locate his presumed dead father.  These two cases leave Charley with her hands full.

I love Charley's interaction with so many of the reoccurring characters in this series.  She and Cookie are the perfect best friends who's comedic timing would keep me in stitches if they were real and right in front of me.  She and Garrett fight like siblings that equally has me cringing and laughing.

And then there's Reyes.  The hot son of Satan plays Charley a lot in order to get her to do what he wants.  It usually turns out bad for Charley, because she tends to run off and do what she wants.  But had Reyes stopped to take Charley's personality into consideration he'd realize that she may not be the best person to do his dirty work.

I thought this was an excellent addition to the Charley Davidson series.  The ending definitely left me wanting to demand a release date for book 4 (I might expire if I have to wait too long), but the book as a whole was a witty, funny, edge of your seat nervous, emotionally charged read.

Some of my favorite scenes from the book:

This one is a conversation between Charley and Cookie after she ditched Garrett.

After a long moment, Cookie said, "So, it went well?"
"Damn straight.  Garrett's a little hot under the collar right now, though.  I'm giving him time to cool down.  Oh, and I stole his phone and threw it into a pond so don't bother calling him again."  M voice turned accusative.
"I'm sorry," she said.  "I was just so worried about you.  How the heck did Reyes get out there?"
"Who the bloody hell knows?  He probably ran.  God, that man is fast."
"My goodness.  Garrett on one end and Reyes on the other.  It's like a really hot, melty s'more."
"Did I mention that Garrett is really pissed?

This is Charley pretending to blackmail the slimy doctor husband.

Exasperated, I said, "I told you, a million clams."  A spark of happiness jumped through me.  I'd always wanted to use the term clams in a real conversation.