Just finished reading...

Grave Secret by Charlaine Harris.

Charlaine Harris has previously written an 8-book series about librarian Aurora Teagarden and a 5-book series about housekeeper-cum-private detective Lily Bard. Currently, besides the immensely popular Sookie Stackhouse/Southern Vampire series, Ms. Harris writes another wonderful paranormal mystery series about Harper Connelly, who is able to find (and, to some extent, "read") dead bodies as a result of having been struck by lightning when a teen.

Harper and her step-brother Tolliver Lang have turned her talent into a business, travelling the country detecting bodies, mostly in order to provide closure for relatives of missing persons. Because she is able to read what was going through the victim's mind just before death, she has occasionally helped solve a suspicious death.

In this book, the fourth in the series, Harper and Tolliver are in Texas, visiting the two little girls they both regard as sisters, who have been taken in by their aunt and uncle. Tolliver's older brother Mark informs him that their father has been released from prison, and would like to reconnect with his children to start over. Neither Tolliver or Harper believe that Matthew Lang has become a new man, and their suspicions seem justified when he approaches the little girls without permission from their adoptive parents.

This complicated situation is further convoluted when Tolliver is hit by a bullet they believe was intended for Harper. But is the gunshot related to the case they just completed, also in Texas, or to something much deeper in their past?

Grave Secret was unputdownable, and I stayed up way too late finishing it. Having forgotten that this is the last volume in the series, I was upset when I finished the book, although the ending does provide some very satisfying conclusions.

Just finished reading...

An Ice Cold Grave by Charlaine Harris.

The Harper Connelly books just keep on getting better. This is the third in the series, and wow!, what a story.

In small town in North Carolina, some teenaged boys have gone missing over a span of several years, and someone finally questions whether or not they were runaways, or victims of a serial killer. Harper and Tolliver are brought in to see if they are, in fact, dead. Not only does Harper find the missing boys, she finds 2 that weren't on the list. Then, she's attacked when out for a run.
All she wants to do is go home and recover, but the SBI and local police "request" that she remain available.

The story is told from Harper's point of view, and we learn a lot more about her in this book, but also a lot more about Tolliver.

I raced through this book, as I do with most of Ms. Harris', and I can hardly wait for more Harper/Tolliver stories.