It could have been a fairly straightforward murder-mystery book, but with Cherie Priest's name on the cover, you know it's going to have a clever twist.

The twist is this: Leda Foley, a struggling Seattle travel agent, has a sporadic and unreliable psychic gift. It doesn't do much for her -- except provide her an outlet as the "psychic psongstress" (preferred label: "klairvoyant karaoke") at a local bar -- until a flash of insight saves a client from an exploding airplane. That client, Grady Merritt, is a Seattle homicide detective, and he's persuaded at the airport -- with Leda on the phone and a fireball at the end of the runway -- that her gift is real. And he wonders if her gift could help him solve a cold case involving the murders of a father and son.

She agrees, reluctantly, but their investigation leads to a surprising and troubling discovery -- the murder they're looking into is somehow connected to the deaths of Leda's fiance and at least one other woman a few years prior.

Grave Reservations has plenty of humor woven into its prose, but there's ample pathos, too. Leda has not recovered from her fiance's murder, and her sadness is always lurking just below the surface of an otherwise sunny disposition. Fortunately, she has her best friend Niki to keep her spirits up, and Niki's boyfriend's bar to hone her psychic skills by choosing songs to sing for strangers, based on the feeling she gets from holding something they had in a pocket or purse.

Grady is a good cop, a little weirded out by his sudden introduction into the world of the paranormal ... but, as noted, he had pretty solid evidence that Leda's gift was real. Even so, he doesn't go the route of so many TV cops, who abruptly add an unqualified consultant -- be they a famous mystery writer or a retired Lord of Hell -- as a partner. Grady tries to keep Leda's involvement in the case under wraps, and he keeps the psychic aspects of the investigation completely secret for as long as he can.

Leda and Grady have a friendly relationship that doesn't become the typical "will they, won't they" of pretty much every story of this type. Who knows, it might become that in the future -- if the book launches a series, which I hope it will -- but for now she is still too wrapped up in the death her late fiance and he's too wrapped up in the death of his late wife (and raising his teenage daughter) to be looking for love.

Bottom line, it's a fun, entertaining book that will keep you guessing until very nearly the end ... and then, after Leda's very enthusiastic reveal of the true villain, you get a very tense wrap-up to the book that will leave you wanting more.

Another bottom line is this: If you have the chance to read anything by Cherie Priest, don't hesitate. Do so, and then look for more.