Leda Foley is a travel agent in Seattle. She has a small office that she hopes one day to pay for with said travel agency, but for now, she’s using some of her savings and living cheaply. It helps that she can drink for free at Castaways, a local bar where her best friend’s boyfriend works and where she sometimes takes over the stage for her Klairvoyant Karaoke, where she feels an object offered up by a customer and then sings the song she feels would be the best choice. Sometimes the customers thank her for the song, sometimes they cry, but she is starting to gain a following there. Hence, free drinks.
But work at the travel agency is a little slow, until the day she changed Grady Merritt’s flight without talking to him first. He’s trying to get home to Seattle, and while he was stuck in traffic, he was still going to make his connecting flight. Except that his travel agent switched the flight on him. He called Foley’s Flights of Fancy, upset about the change, when he sees his original plane turn to smoke from his spot in the terminal.
Although Leda has always felt uncertain of her psychic powers as they seemed too random to be helpful to anyone, when she saved Merritt’s life, he became a believer in Leda. He shows up at her office and explains that he’s a detective for the Seattle PD, and he wants her help for a case that he’d been chasing for months. Leda isn’t at all certain that she can help, but she agrees to a trip to the place where the murder happened, just to see if she had any flashes.
Christopher Gilman had been a shady businessman, and any number of people may have wanted him dead, but his son Kevin was a good man, and he was trying to turn their business around, to make sure they were acting legally and ethically, even compassionately. So while it wasn’t a surprise that Christopher had been shot in a seedy hotel, the fact that Kevin had been with him and had gotten shot also was a surprise, and the police hadn’t been able to find any motive for his murder. The investigation had hit a dead end, and Detective Merritt was hoping Leda could pick up something from the hotel room where it had all gone down.
And while their trip to the seedy hotel where the murders had happened got Leda some background information on Merritt’s case, it wasn’t until they were leaving that Leda had a psychic flash unlike anything she had ever experienced before. It actually knocked her out completely, and as she came to with an EMT standing over her, she realized what had happened. As it turns out, Merritt’s case was linked to a cold case that was very dear to Leda’s heart, the murder of her fiancé Tod.
Now Leda is at least as motivated as Merritt to solve the murders, so she is doing her best to bring her psychic powers forward. But as her flashes bring her closer to the answers, they also bring her closer to the killer. Will she be able to see the case through to the end, or will she become another part of the case for Merritt to investigate?
Grave Reservations is a completely charming new mystery from award-winning writer Cherie Priest. She partners a strong plot with unforgettable characters, and adds lots of humor, irreverence, snark, friendship, and alcohol. Priest had a lot of fun writing this story, and I’m thrilled to say that it’s the first in a series and there is more Leda Foley to come.
I was hooked by the cover picture of Grave Reservations, and I was not disappointed with this fun murder mystery. The characters are so much fun to spend time with, and I liked how the crimes unraveled little by little, the pieces slowly falling into place until you could see the whole picture. I definitely recommend this one for anyone looking for a lighter mystery with a sincere heart to it, and for myself, I can’t wait until I can book another trip with Foley’s Flights of Fancy!
Egalleys for Grave Reservations were provided by Atria Books through NetGalley, with many thanks.
