Grave Importance by Vivian Shaw – Review

Published: September 24, 2019

Publisher: Orbit Books

Series: Dr. Greta Helsing #3

Genre: Fantasy

Pages: 448 (Paperback)

My Rating: 4.5/5.0

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Synopsis:

A charmingly witty fantasy adventure in the world of Strange Practice, starring Dr. Greta Helsing, doctor to the undead, who must solve a dangerous medical mystery at a secret French spa for mummies.

Oasis Natrun: a private, exclusive, highly secret luxury health spa for mummies, high in the hills above Marseille, equipped with the very latest in therapeutic innovations both magical and medical. To Dr. Greta Helsing, London’s de facto mummy specialist, it sounds like paradise. But when Greta is invited to spend four months there as the interim clinical director, it isn’t long before she finds herself faced with a medical mystery that will take all her diagnostic skill to solve.

A peculiar complaint is spreading among her mummy patients, one she’s never seen before. With help from her friends and colleagues — including Dr. Faust (yes, that Dr. Faust), remedial psychopomps, a sleepy scribe-god, witches, demons, a British Museum curator, and the inimitable vampyre Sir Francis Varney — Greta must put a stop to this mysterious illness before anybody else crumbles to irreparable dust…

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I just CANNOT get enough of Dr. Greta Helsing and the adventures she gets sucked into! First of all, I really loved the first two books, Strange Practice and Dreadful Company so I completely expected to love this as well – which I did! It has much the same formula as the others – Greta is abroad, this time temporarily overseeing a mummy medical spa in southern France, when unusual things begin to happen. Her mummy patients are afflicted by sudden blackouts (terribly for mummies – very fragile, you see) and someone is trying to tear a hole in the fabric of reality. No biggie, right?

Obviously I’ve gushed about the characters before, so we’ll go straight to the heart of things – I LOVE these characters. They’re brave, caring, and have their own bizarre senses of humor. They’re the biggest part of why these books have resonated with me so strongly and I’m already plotting to see if a re-read could be in order sometime next year because it’s just such a comfort read. 

The plot in Grave Importance has escalated somewhat since the previous, as happens in many book series. Things start out on a relatively small scale and next thing you know you’re patching holes in reality so the world doesn’t go stark raving mad. All the separate issues in the first two books have impacted the ultimate culmination of events here. Little tears in reality add up in the long run and this is just the final straw. Things escalate, the big guns are called in, and it looks real, real bad for the last 50 pages or so. It was intense, exciting, and morbidly entertaining read. A solid 4.5 stars if you ask me. Not a 5 because it didn’t end in impassioned wailing or shouting and my heart didn’t grow three sizes that day à la Grinch (which would actually be a medical issue).

Should you read this series? Short answer – YES! Longer answer – yes, especially if you’re into weird, dry humor and I think fans of Daniel O’Malley’s The Rook will think it rocks. The whole series was well written and fantastically entertaining while still retaining a solid plot and it had characters you could genuinely care for!! Vivian Shaw is going to be one of those authors whose new books I’ll automatically buy for sure.