A Postcard from the Garden Spot of the Universe

Grave Sight by Charlaine Harris

Grave Sight by Charlaine Harris

Charlaine Harris' latest book is the first in a new series starring Harper Connelly and her brother/business partner Tolliver. Harper has a most unusual business. She hires herself out as a consultant to police departments and other interested parties in finding the bodies of missing people. Harper has had a talent for finding dead people, having developed a kind of sixth sense when she was struck by lightning, since she was a teenager.

Harper can find bodies, and she can also feel how they died. She has to have a pretty clear idea of where to look for the bodies--her sense only works in fairly close proximity. As you might expect, Harper's services are pretty valuable, and since she has no other "skills" finding bodies is how she makes her living. Harper's brother Tolliver travels with her and acts as her business manager, colleague, and minder. Harper needs a minder, because she sometime closes her eyes to "feel" the presence of bodies and she is weak after she makes contact.

Grave Sight is similar to other books by Charlaine Harris in its attention to character development. Harper and Tolliver have an interesting backstory. The characters they meet in the novel are written with an attention to detail and human nature that makes them come alive.

The mystery is engaging, and the pace is well done, but it was pretty easy to figure out whodunnit for a veteran mystery reader.

If you read and like Grave Sight, you might like to read some of the other mysteries written by Charlaine Harris. She has two paranormal series, two mainstream mystery series, and a couple of standalone mysteries. Here's a list:

Standalone Mysteries
Sweet & Deadly
A Secret Rage

Roe Teagarden Mysteries (Roe is a librarian)
Real Murders
A Bone to Pick
Three Bedrooms, One Corpse
The Julius House
Dead Over Heels
A Fool and His Honey
Last Scene Alive
Poppy Done to Death

Lily Bard Mysteries (Lily is a housecleaner, marshall arts enthusiast, and the surviver of a violent crime)
Shakespeare's Landlord
Shakespeare's Champion
Shakespeare's Christmas
Shakespeare's Trollop
Shakespeare's Counselor

Sookie Stackhouse Mysteries (Sookie is a clairvoyant and has a vampire boyfriend)
Dead Until Dark
Living Dead in Dallas
Club Dead
Dead to the World
Dead as a Doornail

Charlaine Harris writes short stories, too, and you can find out where some of them have been published on her website, where you can read more about her.

http://www.charlaineharris.com/

Books On Deck

Thud by Terry Pratchett
Light Years at my Feet by Alan Dean Foster
Cinnamon Skin by Walter Mosley
Poppy Done to Death by Charlaine Harris
Bite, edited by Laurell K. Hamilton

A Loyal Character Dancer by Qui Xiaolong

A Loyal Character Dancer is the second mystery in a series about Shanghai Detective Chen Cao. Detective Chen studied literature in college, but was assigned to the Shanghai police department to work after graduating. He is a loyal party member who frequently experiences problems in maintaining balance between his desire to do a good job (solving crimes) and his need to stay in the good graces of local party bosses. Chen has a group of colleagues and friends he works with in solving his cases.

This case involves a pregnant, missing woman (Wen Liping) who was a talented dancer as a young girl. She was a young girl during the Cultural Revolution, when the only form of public dancing allowed was to dance waving a banner with the symbol for Loyalty on it, in praise of the Red Guard. She was sent to the countryside to live and work as an "educated youth", another program of the cultural revolution. Many former educated youths (including Chen's loyal subordinate Yu and his wife) have since returned to city living and taken on work more suited to their educations, but Wen was stuck in the country, due to her marriage to a brutal man who seems likely to be involved in a Triad crime syndicate.

Wen Liping's husband is important to the story, because he is a potential witness in a human smuggling operation. An American woman (a member of the Marshall service) named Catherine Rohn has been sent to Shanghai to liaise with Chen and escort Wen Liping to America. Wen Liping's husband won't testify until she is with him.

So--Chen is working missing woman case while he acts as a buffer between the American woman and his Party Secretary boss, Li. He is also coordinating the efforts between the two jurisdictions investigating the case. He is also trying to investigate another case--that of a body found in the Bund park. The body is a man who seems to have been killed in a Triad-style execution, so Chen considers the cases to be possibly related.

I'm about 3/4 of the way through this book, so I'll update when I finish.

Here's a link to an interview with Qui Xiaolong
http://books.missouri.org/eviews/may.html
10/20/05