Grave Expectations A Novel

A pacy and hilarious debut crime novel, in which a burnt-out Millennial medium must utilize her ability to see ghosts to figure out which member(s) of a posh English family are guilty of murder.

Almost-authentic medium Claire and her best friend, Sophie, agree to take on a seemingly simple job at a crumbling old manor in the English countryside: performing a seance for the family matriarch's 80th birthday. The pair have been friends since before Sophie went missing when they were seventeen. Everyone else is convinced Sophie simply ran away, but Claire knows the truth. Claire knows Sophie was murdered because Sophie has been haunting her ever since.

Despite this traumatic past, Claire and Sophie are still unprepared for what they encounter when they arrive at the manor: a ghost, tragic and unrecognizable, and clearly the spirit of someone killed in a rage at the previous year's party. Given her obsession with crime shows—not to mention Sophie's ability to walk through walls—Claire decides they're the best people to solve the case. And with the help of the only obviously not-guilty members of their host family—sexy ex-policeman Sebastian and far-too-cool non-binary teen Alex—they launch an investigation into which of last year's guests never escaped the manor's grounds.

What follows is somewhat irregular detective work involving stealing a priest's cassock, getting too drunk to remember to question your suspect, and of course, Chekhov's sparkly purple dildo. As Claire desperately tries to keep a lid on the shameful secret that would definitely alienate her new friends, the gang must race against their own incompetence to find the murderer before the murderer finds them.

ALICE BELL grew up in South West England, in the sort of middle-of-nowhere where teenagers spend their weekends drinking Smirnoff Ice in a field that also has at least one horse in it. In 2018 she became the deputy editor of Rock Paper Shotgun, a popular PC gaming website. In 2019 she was named one of the 100 most influential women in the UK games industry. After spending several years in London, Bell now lives in Cork, Ireland, where she watches giant ships, makes crochet animals, and plays video games where you can set things on fire and make elves kiss. She has probably read more detective fiction and watched more episodes of Midsomer Murders than you.