I read the first of these books when the author came to Granite Noir a few years go and I really enjoyed it, so much so that I’ve followed the series since, this is the third of the books in the series. Grave Expectations was the first and now The Grapples of Wrath is the latest and it could have a case as the best one yet.
Claire Hendricks is a medium-turned-private-investigator, and her ghost best friend Sophie comes as an inseparable plus-one. There is a danger that the premise could easily tip into gimmicky territory, but Bell plays it for exactly the right amount of laughs without ever letting the mystery fall apart, and without letting you forget the actual tragedy behind the two friends.. The pro-wrestling setting works well, and whilst it isn’t a scene I know the slightly faded glamour of the British iteration compared the the big brash WWE in the Sates feels obvious, think more Saturday afternoons with your gran than Wrestlemania. It’s a world already built on spectacle and deception, which makes it perfect for a whodunit where you genuinely can’t tell who’s performing and who’s telling the truth.
The Brighton adds to the faded-glamour energy that suits it perfectly. Bell clearly knows the town and it shows, I’ve only been to Brighton once but it certainly felt like I could see this happening there, and it never feels like a generic backdrop, more like a character in its own right.
What I love most about this series is that it never takes itself too seriously but also never winks too hard at the audience. The humour is often gentle but is definitely there and it’s Sophie’s enthusiasm for the life she can’t have that adds some pathos sometimes. Claire and Sophie’s dynamic is warm without being saccharine, and the found family dynamic that’s been building since the first book works really well. The only thing I’d have like to have seen is the mystery of what happened to Sophie moving along in some way. .
If you haven’t started the series, start from the beginning. If you have, you already know you’re reading this one.