Grave Reservations by Cherie Priest

Atria Books, 304 pages, $26

The tale of a psychic, karaoke-singing, travel reservation-making woman named Leda Foley in Seattle was a good diversion in the high-stress, low-energy week preceding the Christmas weekend. 

Travel agent Leda Foley saves one of her (few) clients from an airplane crash when she suddenly changes his reservation to fly out of Florida back to Seattle. Grady Merritt is upset until he sees the flight he should have been on crash moments after take off. (Perhaps this is not the book you want to read in transit.) When he safely gets back to Seattle, Detective Merritt of the Seattle Police Department pays Leda a call.

Grady does not pooh-pooh Leda’s psychic ability. Instead, he wants to use it on the down-low to get a lead, any lead, on a case which baffles him. Not that he truly believes in psychics. Not that Leda believes she is a true psychic; she has, rather, hunches.

Leda’s best friend, Niki Nelson, is on this earth to have a fun time. She knows about Leda’s premonitions and has more faith than Leda in her talent coming to fruition. In fact, because of Niki, Leda performs psychic karaoke in Niki’s boyfriend’s bar. Leda picks an audience member, holds an object belonging to that person, and then sings an appropriately related song. 

Yes, Leda sings a song.

The upside of performing is Leda feels she is growing better as a singer — although don’t start lining up a singing tour or a broadway debut yet — and her psychic visions are getting stronger. The trouble with her “visions” is she doesn’t know how to interpret them. The karaoke beneficiaries are content, however, with many of them sobbing their relief after Leda’s songs.

Although Leda has helped many people in small measure, she cannot help the one person who needs it the most: herself. A couple years ago, her fiancé died, murdered and left in the back seat of his car in a ditch, with the body of a woman, a stranger, adrift in the same ditch a short distance away. The police have no leads and the case is on the back burner, the way-back burner.

Now Grady brings Leda the case of a man shot in a seedy motel room and his adult son shot in the parking lot. Would Leda try to get vibes from things and places associated with the case? Leda is hesitant until she shakes Grady’s hand. OMG. She faints. When she comes to, Leda realizes the flash that sent her reeling is because Grady is related somehow to the death of her fiancé, Tod. 

Yes, yes, yes, Leda will help Grady. If Grady will help her.

The premise of the plot had me turning the pages but the story pulled up short for me with the character of Leda. In exchange for riding along with Grady — in some cases with her best friend Niki — she agrees to be the strong, silent type in the interviews. Instead, she gabbles and sputters, interrupts and pokes around. Niki is worse. I could picture the thought balloons over the interviewees’ heads, “And who are you, again?” Nevertheless, the subjects patter along and accept the incongruous presence of two random women. As a result of Leda’s actions, I had less faith that Grady’s character could possibly be a legitimate Seattle police detective.

I liked Leda best when she was going through Tod’s possessions, looking for the four costumes she had for Ethel, Lucy, Ricky, and Fred for a costume party night at the bar. She lingered sentimentally over the remains of her life with Tod. She seemed the most human and accessible then.

Despite what I feel about Leda, this is a premise with potential. May the psychic travel agent live to solve another mystery!