|
| Grave Sight (Harper Connelly Mysteries, Book 1) | 
 enlarge | Author: Charlaine Harris
Publisher: Berkley
Category: Book
List Price: $7.99
Buy Used: $2.25
You Save: $5.74 (72%)
New (32) Used (36) Collectible (2) from $2.25
Avg. Customer Rating:  116 reviews
Sales Rank: 1834
Media: Mass Market Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 6.5 x 4.1 x 1
ISBN: 0425212890
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780425212899
ASIN: 0425212890
Publication Date: September 26, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
|
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Harper Connelly has what you might call a strange job: she finds dead people. The way Harper sees it, she's providing a service to the dead while bringing some closure to the living-but she's used to most people treating her like a blood-sucking leech. Traveling with her stepbrother Tolliver as her manager and sometime-bodyguard, she's become an expert at getting in, getting paid, and getting out fast. Because for the living it's always urgent-even if the dead can wait forever.
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 111 more reviews...
 interesting new series October 11, 2005
61 out of 70 found this review helpful
i pre-ordered this title because it was by charlaine harris. i expected a new volume in her roe teagarden series.
i'm definitely not disappointed that it's the start of a new series. i enjoy her southern vampire series also. this book, however, is darker in tone and outlook than the others i've enjoyed(haven't read the shakespeare series yet).
the main characters, harper and her brother, are interesting and well-drawn. the results of the family background are realistic. i can't agree with the comment that there is any sexual tension between the two.
the experienced mystery reader will probably figure out who-dun-it fairly easily, but that doesn't detract all that much from the book.
the least appealing part of the story was the townspeople. those involved with the mystery were almost completely unsympathetic. realistic, yes. but i can encounter enough unpleasant, selfish and repellent people going to the grocery store to want to spend my reading time with so many of them--not to mention that i try to control my impulse to complete cynicism when possible.
i will definitely read the next book in this series. i have faith in harris. i just hope her next book is another sukey stackhouse.
 Delightful, riveting November 21, 2005
55 out of 57 found this review helpful
What a great new series from Charlaine Harris! I can barely wait until the next installment.
Heroine Harper Connelly can find dead people. She's kind of an energy sensing cadaver dog of a medium: able to feel the vibrations of the dead and discern how they died. In some ways Harper is reminiscent of Laurell K Hamilton's Anita Blake: she uses her paranormal skills in both private enterprise, and as part of police forensic investigations. And,like Anita, most of the time the people doing the hiring don't really like to hear what Harper has to tell them.
Harper is assisted and protected by her stepbrother Tolliver. The relationship between these two is complex, to say the least, and it will be wonderful to watch them develop in coming volumes. Harris writes skillfully yet playfully, and develops her characters in a strong, appealing fashion. All of the groundwork for a fantastic series is beautifully established here in Grave Sight.
In this first installment, Harper and Tolliver travel to the Ozarks to find a missing teenaged girl, presumed dead. They find her body deep in a wood, and plunge even deeper into small town intrigue, deception, secrecy, and murder. With conservative bigotry welling up around them, can Harper and Tolliver get away with their lives? Well, of course they can: there are many more books ahead, and I suspect we shall all of us buy them up like hotcakes. This new character is a winner.
A friend for Sookie March 22, 2007
44 out of 44 found this review helpful
Charlaine Harris is a gifted writer, plain and simple. Her Sookie Stackhouse vampire novels have kept me well entertained, while my wife enjoys Harris's more straightforward mysteries. Now, this talented imagination has conjured up a new kind of heroine who straddles the line between mystery and contemporary fantasy: Harper Connelly.
Harper is no action hero. She's not a brilliant detective or slayer of evil. She has no supernatural origins, nor does she have a relationship with any kind of undead creature. No, Harper's world is largely mundane, with one major difference. Ever since she was struck by lightning, she's been afraid of thunderstorms, she is weak in one leg ... and she can sense the location and final moments of the dead. That makes her a valuable commodity to those seeking answers, closure for a loss or the location of a missing (presumed dead) loved one. It also makes her somewhat unclean in the eyes of many, a ghoul who makes her living off the dead and, quite often, supplies answers no one is eager to hear. Still, she travels with her stepbrother, Tolliver Lang, and does what good she can -- for a profit -- without getting too involved in the lives (or deaths) of those she encounters.
But then she and Tolliver roll into Sarne, a small town in the Arkansas Ozarks with a few big secrets. The job seems easy at first, just find a missing teenage girl. But answers to one disappearance lead to further questions about other deaths, and soon the siblings are wrapped up in a criminal case that could cost Harper her professional reputation -- or even her life.
Harper is a darker protagonist than Sookie, and the tone of the book is more serious; there is humor, but it's painted with a much lighter brush. Also, while Harper's "power" is certainly fantastic, the novel otherwise is entirely grounded in reality. The characters, major and minor, seem so damn real, it's hard to believe they were just invented for this book.
by Tom Knapp, Rambles.(n e t) editor
Finding Bodies and Answers April 15, 2007
44 out of 44 found this review helpful
Grave Sight (2005) is the first fantasy novel in the Harper Connelly series. Harper was struck by lightning as a girl and after that she was able to sense the presence of bodies. When she is close enough to the body, she also relives the death experience.
In this novel, Harper and her stepbrother, Tolliver Lang, have come to Sarne -- a small town in the Ozarks -- to find a body. Dell Teague, a teenage boy, had been found dead six months ago, but his girlfriend Monteen Hopkins had not been missed until the next day and the body still hasn't been found. Dell's mother, Sybil Teague, hires Harper to find the missing girl.
Harper finds Teeny's body and faints from the shock of reliving the youngster's murder. Then Harper and Tolliver have to stay in Sarne awaiting confirmation of identity by the state police lab before being paid. Harper finds out more about Teeny and Dell and even meets Helen Hopkins, Monteen's mother.
Harper also meets a friendly policeman, Hollis Boxleitner, who had been married to Teeny's sister. Sally Boxleitner had died before Teeny and Harper soon finds out that she too had been murdered. Then another murder occurs and Harper is told to stay in town.
In this story, the common people of Sarne are generally hospitable, but Sheriff Harvey Bransom is very hostile. His widowed sister Sybil and her lawyer Paul Edwards seem to be more antsy than usual. Other people associated with the principals are even more hostile than the sheriff. And then there are the state police investigators.
Harper has a continuing problem with people who believe that her ability to find the dead is fraudulent or downright weird. Some even believe her to be an agent of the devil. She has been stoned as a witch and once she barely escaped from a mob. She suffers from a bad case of kill the messenger.
Having this talent has made her life more difficult. Yet she also has the consolation of giving closure to the relatives of missing persons. Still, Harper is not always successful in finding the missing bodies, particularly when the victim has been taken far away from the scene of the crime. Her own sister is one such case.
Harper and Tolliver are very close. Although they came from different families, her mother and his father were married when they were older children. Since these parents were alcoholics and drug users, their children were more neglected than parented. Harper and Tolliver raised their younger siblings with a little help from Mark, Tolliver's older brother.
Having personal experience with such neglected and abused children, I find Harper's backstory to be fairly typical of such cases, even to the children trying to avoid the governmental authorities. Naturally, these two are very protective of -- and dependent upon -- each other.
This story is an unusual variant on the murder mystery. As with the Southern Vampire series, the paranormal element introduces a wild card into the plot. Although Harper's rare talent is powerful, it also has strict limits; for example, she only perceives what the victim sees in the last few moments. Rarely does she know the identity of a killer.
Highly recommended for Harris fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of mysterious murders, exceptional talents and unusual persons.
-Arthur W. Jordin
Bodies, bodies everywhere June 29, 2007
17 out of 20 found this review helpful
Grave Sight(2005)
I bought this book for my wife based upon Arthur W. Jordin's excellent review(see below) and then decided to read it myself, first. It's an excellent book, if you enjoy the TV shows Bones, House and others like them which my wife does you'll enjoy this book. It isn't War and Peace, but it is light enjoyable reading. I didn't particularly like War and Peace anyhow. I think it was all those Russian names.
Gunner June, 2007
|
|
|
Powered by Associate-O-Matic
| |
