Grave Secret is the fourth Harper Connelly paranormal mystery from
Charlaine Harris. Harper, after suffering a lightning strike as a
teenager, has the ability to sense the dead and to know how they
died. She and her brother, that is, her stepbrother, Tolliver, who
is also her manager and business partner, make a living by
traveling around the country consulting for local police
departments and people who want to learn the truth about the death
of their loved ones.
At the end of the last book, An Ice Cold Grave, Harper and her
brother - um, stepbrother - had finally acknowledged the nature of
their love for one another and become partners in all senses of the
word. In Grave Secret, they've returned to Texas to visit their
younger sisters and they're not keeping the change in their
relationship a secret, instead they're telling everyone they know,
and most everyone is, to say the least, disturbed by the situation.
Some are downright disgusted, and it doesn't help matters that
Harper frequently still refers to Tolliver as "my brother." And,
although Harper and Tolliver don't share any blood, they do share
two half sisters, the children of his father and her mother.
With her ususal flare, Harris neatly weaves the current case, that
of a wealthy Texas family that wants to learn the details of their
grandfather's cause of death eight years earlier, with the trauma
that drives Harper, the disappearance of her sister Cameron.
Tolliver's father, Matthew, recently released from prison, appears
on scene and although his desire to connect with the son he
abandoned for drugs many years earlier is suspect, it helps steer
the lovers closer to an understanding of the truth.
Charlaine Harris is a master craftsman, and endlessly creative.
While not as suspenseful as the previous book, the story is more
personal. It also had a couple of twists and turns I didn't see
coming. My one worry is that as the story wraps up, it also has the
feeling of goodbye, like this book may be the last in the series. I
hope not, but if it is, at least Harris has brought things to a
satisfying end.