Grave surprise

As I believe I'd posted earlier in the year while working on some of the Lily Bard books, I'm these days definitely liking Charlaine Harris better when she's slanting more towards the mystery side of her spectrum than the fantasy side. The Harper Connelly series seems to occupy a space between the Lily Bards and the Sookie Stackhouses--but it's closer to the former than the latter, even given Harper's strange talent of being able to find dead bodies and sense the causes of their deaths.

I found the second installment in this series a nice followup to the first, advancing not only Harper's reputation for what she does but also the relationship between her and her step-brother Tolliver. I'll be really surprised if Harper and Tolliver do not eventually establish a romantic relationship--but for the time being, I'm definitely enjoying a series that's taking its time about that, and showing us that there's more to the relationship with these characters than just potential sex. On a related note, I also appreciate that neither Harper nor Tolliver really fit the cookie-cutter beauty that you see all too often in novels; Harper's frail and Tolliver has acne scars. It makes these characters seem way more real to me than most urban fantasy characters ever could.

Plotwise, things were a bit on the slow side. There was too much time spent with various and sundry characters presenting Harper and Tolliver with the "you guys are ghoulish so you must clearly have planted the body" attitude, and a whole lot of conversation and speculation got thrown around... but there was very little actual action or plot development. On the other hand, things were described in a lively enough fashion that I didn't mind the slow pace much.

Points also to Ms. Harris for sneaking in an amusing Elvis reference as Harper gets to joke about why it would be a bad idea for going to Graceland, too. Which may be another reason I keep coming back to her books; I'm a sucker for a fellow Elvis fan. ^_^ Three stars.