The Harper Connelly series by Charlaine Harris

The Harper Connelly series by True Blood author Charlaine Harris consist of 4 books.
 Grave Sight (#1), Grave Surprise (#2), An Ice Cold Grave (#3), Grave Secret (#4)

The books are narrated by 20-something year old Harper Connelly, a young woman with a deeply disturbed family history and past who makes a living of the ability she gained from being struck by lightning at age 15. Accompanied by her stepbrother and manager Tolliver Lang, she travels around the States finding dead bodies – she can hear them. When near a dead person, she can hear a “buzzing sound” that intensifies if the death is more recent. Beyond that she can also see how the given person died.

The 4 books each have their little crime plot and mystery to be solved. Harper is a likeable character and despite her abilities, she’s mostly just a normal relate-able person with the same thoughts and feelings as the rest of us. Tolliver never grew on me but a few of the other recurring characters were quite fun.

Even more so than the True Blood books, there’s loads of hanging around, doing trivial stuff, passing time and waiting for something dramatic to happen or recovering from just that. Particularly the final book suffered from this, however I still very much enjoy all four books; again, like the True Blood books, they’re guilty pleasures of mine. They’re well written and engaging and a nice way to spend time.

Grave Sight (#1) ISBN13: 9780575079236 263 pages / published in 2005
Grave Surprise (#2) ISBN13: 9780425214701 320 pages / published in 2006
An Ice Cold Grave (#3) ISBN13: 9780425224243 280 pages / published in 2007
Grave Secret (#4) ISBN13: 9780575085534 320 pages / published in 2009
Reviews by Iben Jakobsen, BoB, 2013