Grave Sight (Harper Connelly Mysteries, Book 1) (Mass Market Paperback)

by Charlaine Harris (Author)
Key Phrases: broken taillight, Mary Nell, Paul Edwards, Sybil Teague (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Ever since Harper Connelly survived a zap from a lightning bolt, she's been able to find dead people, a skill that makes the protagonist in the first installment of Harris's new series a tad more bizarre than the mind-reading heroine of the author's Sookie Stackhouse books (Dead as a Doornail, etc.). Harper travels to the Ozark town of Sarne, Ark., to find a missing teenage girl's body, accompanied by her stepbrother, Tolliver, who acts as her manager and bodyguard and with whom she shares a thinly disguised physical attraction that they manage to keep at bay by engaging in casual sex with various partners. Finding the body takes no time at all, but leaving town afterward isn't so easy. When Harper's life is threatened and Tolliver ends up in jail on trumped-up charges, it quickly becomes apparent that something sinister is going on in Sarne. Harris delivers a knuckle-gnawing tale populated with well-developed, albeit edgy characters. A nifty puzzle toward the end will challenge the most jaded mystery buffs.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist
Prolific author Harris debuts a series that just might surpass all her others in popularity. Harper Connolly is honest, ethical, loyal, and, in many people's eyes, quite odd. Since being hit by lightning, Harper has a strange gift: she can find dead people and reveal how they died. Harper is so down-to-earth and delivers the story in such a straightforward way that even the most hardened realist eventually will accept the premise. In this first outing, Harper and her manager and stepbrother Tolliver travel to a small town in Arkansas to determine what happened to a local teenager. Once there, they learn that someone is willing go to great lengths--even murder--to bury a secret. While absorbing the usual mixture of awe, revulsion, and fear that her "gift" inspires in the locals, Harper tries to uncover the secret they are trying desperately to hide. Future stories may shed more light on Harper and Tolliver's relationship, which seems curiously close for a sister and stepbrother. A strong debut that will have readers dying for more. Jenny McLarin
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Berkley (September 26, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0425212890
• ISBN-13: 978-0425212899
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (140 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #845 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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• This is item 1 in The Harper Connelly Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

72 of 76 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Delightful, riveting, November 21, 2005

By	Debra Morse (Southern California) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Grave Sight (Harper Connelly Mysteries, Book 1) (Hardcover)

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.

30 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A friend for Sookie, March 21, 2007

By	Tom Knapp "Rambles.NET editor" (Lancaster, PA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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

65 of 73 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars interesting new series, October 10, 2005

By	E Rice (western ny state) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Grave Sight (Harper Connelly Mysteries, Book 1) (Hardcover)

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.