kelleyj77's Full Review: Charlaine Harris - Grave Sight
Carrying on her tradition of writing about heroines who are about as different from the average woman as possible, Charlaine Harris has given us Harper Connelly. She looks just like a young woman you might encounter on the street, but Harper is quite unusual. You see, she was struck by lightning when she was a teenager, and that incident gave her a strange gift. Well, if you want to call sensing dead bodies around her a gift . . .
Harper and her brother, Tolliver, have turned this anomaly into a career. People hire them to search for the bodies of loved ones, although many of her customers are more than a little uncomfortable with her. In this book, Harper and Tolliver are in Sarne, a small town in Arkansas to search for a body of a young woman who may or may not have been killed by her boyfriend, who then allegedly shot himself. Harper soon realizes that the "facts" of the case are a little skewed, and there are some dark secrets in this tiny town.
As the murder investigation opens up, Harper and Tolliver are detained in Arkansas, despite the fact that their job is done. Facing grief, anger and, in some cases, sheer hatred, they're trapped in a town with a murderer. Befriended by an amorous deputy and unable to leave Sarne, Harper gets more involved in the former lives of the dead than she is comfortable with.
Harper is an unusual and reluctant amateur sleuth, but she is a very typical Harris character. Lily Bard, of the Shakespeare series, and Sookie Stackhouse from the Southern Vampire books, are similar to Harper not in their pasts or abilities, but in the fact that each is very much an outsider in the worlds they inhabit. Harper has overcome a very difficult past, and judging from the events of this book, is facing an equally hard future. But she is strong and smart, so hopefully some easy breaks will come her way.
Tolliver is an unusual sidekick. As her step-brother and best friend, he tags along and manages the business side of their job. He's also apparently irresistible to the opposite sex, and is constantly picking up women wherever they go. It will be interesting to see where their partnership leads, as I am sure that it won't remain the two of them forever.
For the first book in a new series, Grave Sight does a good job of setting the stage for future endeavors. The characters are introduced strongly, and readers get a hint of what Harper has faced in the past. Finding dead bodies is a very unique career, and is refreshing to find in a mystery genre that usually features light and fluffy occupations, like wedding planners and chefs. The hard-edged nature of this series will definitely set itself apart from its contemporaries.
The New York Times bestselling author of Dead as a Doornail introduces a new supernatural mystery series featuring Harper Connelly, a woman who has wh...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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