Grave Sight (Harper Connelly Mysteries, Book 1)

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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 114 more reviews...

4 out of 5 stars

interesting new series October 10, 2005
61 out of 69 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.

5 out of 5 stars

Delightful, riveting November 21, 2005
54 out of 56 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.

4 out of 5 stars

A friend for Sookie March 22, 2007
19 out of 19 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

5 out of 5 stars

excellent October 4, 2005
10 out of 12 found this review helpful

After being struck by lightening, Harper Connelly can locate dead people and know if they died of natural causes, committed suicide, or were murdered. Relatives of missing people hire Harper to find their missing loved ones. Harper knows how they died because she senses the last minutes of the individual's life. Right now she and her step-brother Tolliver are in the Ozark town of Sarne, hired to find Teenie, a missing teenage girl.

Harper finds the burial place and knows that the girl was murdered. She also discovers that Teenie's boyfriend didn't kill her and in remorse committed suicide but was murdered as well. Hollis, one of the police officers working the homicides, is interested in Harper who tells him that his wife Sally, the sister of Teenie was murdered and not an accident victim. Someone wants Harper and Tollivar gone and that person will not hesitate to use violence if it results in getting rid of them permanently.

Considering that the heroine can find a dead body and learn how they died, she is amazingly normal and treats her skill like any of her other five senses. She even make a living out of it, not to exploit people but to give closure and sometimes even helping her client figure out who killed them if it was a homicide. Fast pacing, excellent character development and a strong storyline make GRAVE SIGHT an excellent reading experience. This fabulous opening gambit affirms that every series Charlaine Harris creates is utterly fantastic.

Harriet Klausner

2 out of 5 stars

A possibly interesting story ruined by bad editing. April 12, 2006
10 out of 20 found this review helpful

I realize that America in general is not becoming a country of wisdom and intellect--our schools are a prime example of that as we focus more on being able to fill out a bubble sheet correctly than on actual learning. However, to assume that everyone in the country is ignorant really gets my blood boiling. One of the most recent examples of that is the lackadaisical editing found in most of today's modern novels. Do they really think we're not going to notice all the errors in the books we read?

Case in point: I picked up Charlaine Harris's new book Grave Sight because I enjoy her Southern Vampire Series--they're a lot of fun if you're looking for a bit of light reading--lots of sass, attitude, interesting situations, and sexy vampires--what more could you ask for?

This new series also contains paranormal aspects and the reviews I'd read seemed encouraging.

That is, until I actually started reading the book.

I was ready to put it down within the first dozen pages--not because of the story, but because of the seriously horrific editing. The choppy, detail by detail sentences are worthy of a high school freshman copying a bad crime novel. If the author was trying a new style, she failed, and seemed to realize this as the book moved along and the sentences began to flow more smoothly.

However, it's not just the amateurish style that got to me, but the little details that any decent editor should have caught. A character's name, for example, that changes ON THE SAME PAGE ('Dale' and 'Dell' on page 117). Or this, on page 10, one of my favorite examples of bad writing, "The waitress had filled my coffee cup and taken my first swallow before the sheriff spoke." What is the waitress doing drinking from the protagonist's coffee cup?

I just want to know, how difficult is it to get someone to read a book before it is sent to the publisher? If they're having that much trouble finding people with a basic knowledge of the English language, I will gladly offer my services. As for now, I am thoroughly discouraged with this increasing trend in bad editing and I will not buy a hardback copy of a book again. I'm not going to waste that much money on a book I can get used for three bucks a couple of months later. That way, I won't feel bad for throwing it away in anger when reading another page becomes too painful to bear.

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