Book Review: Grave Expectations by Alice Bell

I have been a sucker for mysteries featuring not-quite-mediums since inhaling Richard Peck’s entire Blossom Culp series back in grade school, and am so happy to be able to add the extremely charming Grave Expectations to that beloved subgenre! Our heroine Claire Hendricks can see ghosts, in large part due to the attachment of a singular specter. When Claire was a teenager, her best friend went missing. Said best friend came back as a ghost, rendering Claire the only person, besides a possible murderer, who knows for sure that her best friend is dead. Claire has certainly suffered for the knowledge, enduring ridicule and worse as families and police alike understandably prefer hope over her unsubstantiated claims. The less than thrilling side effects of being attached to a ghost – including, but not limited to, constantly feeling cold and being plagued by visions and sounds no one else experiences – are little better, severely curtailing her ability to maintain either a job or a social life.

It’s taken years, but Claire has finally managed to parlay speaking with ghosts into a career that affords her a meager but independent living. When she runs into a wealthy acquaintance from college, she feels little remorse for quoting an inflated rate to conduct a séance at Figgy Wellington-Forge’s ancestral manor. It is, after all, one of her busiest times of the year:

“Claire and I were at university together, d’you remember me saying, Mummy?” said Figgy. “And I ran into her and, when she told me her job, I thought it would be so quirky and spooky. I was only saying to Claire in the car, it’s perfect for Halloween. Didn’t I say that, Claire?”

 

“Yes, you did. And yeah, this is usually quite a good time of year for me.”

 

Claire noticed that everyone in the room was sort of hanging around, watching her. It was a strange feeling. She didn’t think they were trying to be rude, but it seemed a bit like they were privy to a rare zoological exhibit. Just as she thought of them as common or garden posh dullards, Claire realized that they saw her as the lesser-known drab weirdo.

Claire is canny enough to know when to push her eccentricities and when to hold back, as she prepares to essentially be the entertainment for Figgy’s grandmother’s birthday weekend. But not even she is prepared for a sudden death to mar the festivities. Intriguingly, the dead person’s spirit insists that they weren’t murdered. They do, however, believe that someone else was killed on the premises a year ago, and that it was definitely the fault of one of the Wellington-Forges.

While most of this family comfortably fit the posh dullard stereotype, Claire finds two allies among them as she begins to investigate. Alex is the youngest “Gen Z” member of the family, and is more than willing to provide backup to Claire and her seemingly out there ideas. Basher is the former cop who is far more skeptical of Claire’s abilities, though he has plenty of reason to side with her as she looks into his dead relative’s claims.

The year before, four guests had been present at the annual birthday weekend. After a series of catastrophic scenes, all four abruptly left the manor. Claire is sure that one of those guests never actually made it off the premises. With Alex and Basher’s help, she sets about tracking down the missing people while sorting through clues and alibis. The more she investigates, though, the more she worries that getting to the bottom of the case will destroy the first real friendships she’s been able to make in a long while…if the truth about her own checkered past doesn’t ruin everything first.

Claire, Alex, and Basher are only three of the wonderful characters that populate this book; I’m leaving at least two others unmentioned for fear of spoilers. Grave Expectations uses the paranormal to engage with the often outrageous realities of modern life, even while grappling sensitively with murder investigations and the effects of crime and loss on those left behind. Claire’s relationship with her best friend-turned-spirit guide is both difficult and meaningful. It’s heavy stuff, but much like the modern-day millennials she writes about, Alice Bell masterfully uses humor to explore her themes. In this example, Claire has to carefully choose her words when the person who will most likely be signing her paycheck notices her staring at the headline of his newspaper:

[“]Corporate political correctness is running amok everywhere, and you can’t even bloody eat food how you want!” he said, misreading her expression. “Now people are complaining that if you make rarebit with mayo, it’s cultural appropriation! Can you believe it?”

 

Claire considered the best way to answer this.

 

“No,” she said. “I cannot believe people are doing that.”

 

She was aware that (a) she would probably fall into this newspaper’s definition of wokerati, and (b) if she was able to conceal this from Hugh like a ratfuck coward, she might be able to get a bonus for good behavior on top of her already-inflated fee.

Claire is every millennial trying to keep body and soul together while putting up with the fake outrage of people who don’t have to worry about making rent, and can thus channel their energy into problems that don’t actually exist. Her story is a wonderful representation of what it means to be a burnt out thirty-something trying to eke out a living in our modern era, while also dealing with unresolved trauma and invisible afflictions. This debut novel is a winner from start to finish, and I can’t wait to read more from this author!