Grave Measures

The Grave Report, Book 2

By: R.R. Virdi

Narrated by: Travis Baldree

Length: 11 hrs and 45 mins

Publisher's summary

"This series is worth your time." (Jim Butcher, number one New York Times best-selling author of The Dresden Files)

What do shadows darting across the walls, cryptic writing, black fog, and a little girl who can see ghosts have in common? Paranormal investigator and soul without a body Vincent Graves has 44 hours to find out.

To make matters worse, his years of body-hopping and monster-hunting are catching up with him. He's losing his mind. An old contact has shut him out. To top it all off, something's skulking through an asylum, killing patients.

Three guesses who might be next, and the first two don't count. The writing on the wall is not so clear. But one thing is: If he doesn't figure this out he's a dead man - well, deader - and a strange young girl might follow. Vincent's got his back against a wall, and that wall's crumbling.

Some days it's not worth it to wake up in someone else's body.

©2016 R. R. Virdi (P)2021 Tantor

WOW!!!

R.R. Virdi really steps it up in this book. Action packed and fun with a great setting. Audio performance really pulls you in as well. Great job and highly recommend this read/listen!

Fun

If you like Dresden you'll like this. Similar character and plot tools. Enjoy the ride.

Even better.

As Audiobook 2 in a series, Grave Measures hits all the targets it needs to. It expands the world, its characters grow, the story improves off book 1 even as it sets up book 3, raises the stakes all the way through and it'sthe same great Narrator as book 1. I enjoyed this book more than the first and am looking forward to book 3.

A fantastic premise populated by fantastic characters

Really, really good. Virdi knows how to keep up the pace and make you care about the characters. I’m looking forward to the next one.

Intriguing world and protagonist predicament.

I really enjoyed the overall tone of the story and the world building so far. I hope there is more story to unfold even more of this world and the characters and the supernatural beings with in it.

I may not be a writer, but I am a consumer of the written/spoken word. And one trend that I see being ground into urban paranormal is this self flagellating style of character development. Can we stop? Please? These characters can be well developed and be imperfect and even antihero-like without the constant, self loathing and self flagellating, that appears in this book. I can deal with the over-the-top, snarky remarks better than with that. Hint: less snark and more substance please. In an audiobook I feel snark may become overkill very fast.

While this character does not appear as misogynistic as Jim Butcher’s earlier work (why I stopped reading his books after one) why do writers have such a difficult time relating to a strong, female character? Why does she have to come off like a nag just because she is determined, bad assed, and holds the main character accountable for his actions? Ortiz comes off more like a supernatural bully to Vincent than a partner. It’s such a shame as her role could be so much more with less of her written angst.

Anyway I may consider the third book after a long break and if there is a fourth. I love a series and this one has the makings of a long running one in my opinion. I’m cheering for this author to grow this world and its characters.

Great twist on old lore

the strong female characters were well depicted and as always, Graves' constant nerdy references and creative swearing were so cheeky and a great addition to the story.

Almost better

Honestly was skeptic whether the second book would be better. With steady character progression and growing tensions i think the third will either bring the story to full stride or buckle under hype. only time will tell and I had to give it a second listen to fully enjoy and have the book sink in. certainly not the dresden files, but in this case thats a good thing.

it was better than the first book

I loved how spooky and out right scary this one got. there were some chapters I could listen to before bed. absolutely masterful in how it was written and how it was read.

I love the audio book reader as well I will be hunting down more of the writer works but all the reader.

I adore this series so much I am sad there is only one more book left.

I Quit

This series has an interesting premise but the first book was boring. I decided to give the series another shot and after this book, I will not be continuing.

Graves is a terrible detective. He ignored clues that should have been obvious throughout. He ‘s annoyingly passive as well. He caves to whatever Ortiz wants.

Ortiz is obnoxious again. She knows that she knows nothing about this magical world but refuses to heed Graves’ warnings. She constantly talks down to him, gets in his way and does nothing helpful until the end when she saves the useless protagonist.

Graves is supposed to be a smart alec, always cracking jokes but they aren’t funny. His pop culture references are sometimes laughably wrong. For example, at one point he says, “Batman doesn’t tell people he’s Batman, they already know.” Batman tells people he’s Batman all the time!! “I’m Batman” is one of the most quoted lines from any Batman movie.

The story was 15 minutes of material stretched out to novel length. Most of the book is Graves walking around agonizing over philosophy. It’s not even interesting philosophy, it’s the same question over and over. “Oh I’m so bad. Why do I get people involved?”

I hate writing negative reviews and I apologize for this one. I couldn’t hold it in.