An Ice Cold Grave by Charlaine Harris

One of the series that I'm hoping to get caught up on this year is the Harper Connelly series by Charlaine Harris.  Over my Christmas vacation I read An Ice Cold Grave (Harper Connelly Mysteries, No. 3) which only leaves me one more- Grave Secret (Harper Connelly Mysteries, Book 4)- before I can check one item off my list.  (Am I the only one who peppers my list with easy wins like this?) I was nervous about the direction that the series was heading at the end of book three, but Harris manages to pull off exactly what I was fearful of without totally creeping me out. (If you've read the book you totally know what I refer to!)

So what's the series about? Harper was struck by lightning as a teen and ever since then has been able to located dead bodies. While this seems like a bit of a parlour trick, Harper has built up a reputation and a earns a living locating bodies for police departments and grieving relatives. She is able to "see" a person's last moments as well and can tell how a person died. As you can imagine there is some skepticism around this and she has to continually prove herself to not be a fraud.

And what is this one about, specifically? Harper has been called to a small town where high school boys have been disappearing for the last 5 or 6 years. The old sheriff refused to believe it was foul play, but the new sheriff knows some one is taking the boys and wants answers. Harper finds the bodies and then discovers some horrible secrets.  Of course this leads to a threat against Harper herself as more and more people get involved.

Harris does a great job making Harper and her partner Tolliver into believable people.  I find them to be a little bit too anti-social and sometimes that is wearing on the reader, but otherwise they are great characters.  I don't see any shades of the Sookie Stackhouse series in the books but they have the same consistent, strong storylines.  They are a bit formulaic, you always know there will be suspicion cast on Harper and Tolliver, but my experience is that all mysteries are a bit predictable.  I'd recommend them as a nice alternative to the vampires and werewolves that populate most of the paranormal world.

You can find Charlaine Harris online here.
I also enjoy reading her blog entries, where she is in the habit of recommending other great books.


An Ice Cold Grave by Charlaine Harris
Berkley
2008
288 pages





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