Reader's Review: "Grave Beginnings" by R. R. Virdi

Synopsis from Amazon: 

Another day, another hijacked body. And just 13 hours to solve a murder…

Detective Vincent Graves has made a habit of dying. Waking up in someone else’s body isn’t pleasant, especially when it's inside a coffin with tons of dirt pressing down on it. Once he’s out, he learns his soul has 13 hours to find the borrowed body’s killer.

With the help of a brilliant FBI agent, Vincent’s quest for clues leads to a looming supernatural presence. And escaping the dark threat may be impossible with his ever-ticking clock…

Can Vincent close the case in time, or will a powerful being make him rest in peace for good?

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

My Review: 

As intrigued as I was by the blurb, I have to say, it did the job of drawing interest while revealing nothing of the impending adventure awaiting!

Vincent Graves typically begins each of his countless lives in a grave. His body died long ago, but his soul lives on at the behest of a higher power that commissions him to inhabit a recently-deceased-by-mysterious-supernatural-causes body and interact with beings of supernatural lore to solve the murder and catch the killer.

Oh, and he has a time limit for the investigation, or his soul dies forever.

From the instant Vincent bursts out of the grave of his latest body, Virdi hurls the reader into a spectacular world through the eyes of a character whose appearance and thus identity is not his own, with characters so vivid that I felt like I was watching a TV show and laughing the whole time.
Graves is just the right level of uncouth cynic (read: much swearing... but it's prodigious, not superfluous, so it was easy to censor or ignore and it really got the character across) as you would expect a forcibly re-embodied soul who's done this sort of thing too many times to count, with insufficient explanation and fewer supplies in a mission with his shortest time limit yet! Virdi's clever treatment of such supernatural tropes as wraiths, ghosts, Elementals, and gnomes lends that air of legitimacy that makes the supernatural/sci-fi/fantasy genre such a pleasure to read.

Hang on to your hats, folks, 'cause this will be the ride of a lifetime!

>>>>>>>>>>>

Further Reading: (Supernatural/Paranormal Investigations/Urban Fantasy)
The Grave Reports--R. R. Virdi
        -Grave Beginnings (this book)
        -Grave Measures 
        -Grave Dealings 
-The Longest Night Watch, Volume 1--Lacey D. Sutton (Editor)
-Notna--J. D. Cunegan
The Jill Andersen Series--J. D. Cunegan
       -Bounty 
       -Blood Ties 
       -Behind the Badge
-Charon, Unguarded--A. H. Johnstone
Stories of Togas, Daggers And Magic--Assaph Mehr
       -Murder in Absentia 
Alexi Sokolsky: Hound of Eden--James Osiris Baldwin
        -Burn Artist 
        -Blood Hound 
Judah Black Series--E. A. Copen
       -Guilty By Association 
       -Blood Debt
The LouisiAngel Series--C. L. Coffey
        -Angel in Training 
        -Angel Eclipsed 
        -Angel Tormented
The Runespells Series--Sarah Buhrman
       -Too Wyrd