Review: Grave Sight by Charlaine Harris

Title: Grave Sight(Harper Connelly #1)
Author: Charlaine Harris
Genre: Mystery
Mass Market Paperback: 263 pages
Publisher: Berkley (September 26th 2006)
ISBN-10: 0425212890
ISBN-13: 9780425212899
Description:

I have what you might call a strange job: I find dead people. I can sense the final location of a person who’s passed and share their very last moment. The way I see it, I’m providing a service to the dead while bringing some closure to the living–but I’m used to most people treating me like a blood-sucking leech…

Harper and her stepbrother Tolliver are experts at getting in, getting paid, and then getting out of town fast, because the people who hire Harper have a funny habit of not really wanting to know what she has to tell them. At first, the little Ozarks town of Sarne seems like no exception. A teenage girl has gone missing, and Harper knows almost immediately that this girl is dead. But the secrets of her death, and the secrets of the town, are deep enough that even Harper’s special ability can’t uncover them. With hostility welling up all around them, she and Tolliver would like nothing better than to be on their way. but then another woman is murdered. And the killer’s not finished yet…

Now here is a unique story about Harper Connelly, a lightning strike survivor able to locate dead bodies. When she and her step-brother Tolliver arrive in Sarne, they don’t get a warm welcome. It’s clear from the beginning Harper’s unusual talent is regarded as a hoax and would only serve to do more damage to those suffering from the loss of a teenage girl, Teenie.

But when Harper and Tolliver head back to their motel to move to the next town, she finds a fresh body nearby. She calls it in and offers the info up as a ‘freebie’ since the man she found died accidentally and hadn’t turned up missing yet. This discovery proves her ability to the disbelieving town leaders, but after much debate, it’s agreed to take Harper along for the ride as a consultant in their ongoing investigation.

As is similar with The Southern Vampireseries, you are introduced to several fun, unique, and very real people who reside in the small town of Sarne. Each character reacts to Harper in their own way; mostly with suspicion, some with hate, others with fear. Harper herself has come to realize she’s not the best people person, and leaves such skills to Tolliver the charmer to handle.

The unique ability that Harper possesses is a side-effect of her lightning strike when she was a teenager. It’s fun to read how Harper deals with every one’s sometimes not so blatant suspicions of her. She pulls every trick out of the book, even going so far as to play on their beliefs by choosing just the right words they want to hear.

“She is in heaven with all the saints, in eternal glory.” The toeing of the line always impressed them and got them off my back.

Underlying it all is a mystery that unravels itself and comes at you from left field. I have to say I enjoyed the uniqueness of Harper’s ability the best. I loved how it works, how the bodies seem to want to be found, and I love how Harper has to struggle between the two worlds of the living and the dead. I highly recommend this book not only for the supernatural aspect, but as its one of the best mysteries I’ve read in a long time.