A bolt of lightning struck Harper Connelly when she was 15, leaving her with a strange spider web of red on her torso and right leg, episodes of weakness, shakes and headaches - and an ability to find dead people. Harper is summoned to Memphis to demonstrate her unique talent, but there are still plenty of sceptics, even as Harper stands atop a grave and announces there are two bodies buried there. The police are convinced there's something fishy going on when the grave is opened to reveal the centuries-dead remains of a man, which they'd expected (that being his grave, after all) and a dead girl, which no one expected - except Harper, of course. And suspicions are raised even further because Harper had failed to find eleven-year-old Tabitha Morgenstern when she was abducted two years before. Harper and Tolliver need to find the real killer to prove Harper's innocence, especially after their nocturnal visit to the cemetery in hopes that Harper can sense something more is followed by the discovery, the following morning, of a third dead body in the grave ...

Review

"Being struck by lightning has given Harper Connelly (Grave Sight, 2005, etc.) the ability to find dead bodies and know what killed them-a spooky talent that earns her a living and places her in frequent danger.Clyde Nunley is a professor at a Memphis-area college who loves to debunk paranormal behavior. When he invites Harper Connelly to visit an old campus graveyard where records labeling the bodies and causes of death have just been discovered, she confounds him as she works through the graves, correctly identifying each manner of death, until she comes to one she knows contains a recent burial. The body is that of Tabitha Morgenstern, 11, whose body Harper had tried and failed to find 18 months earlier. Harper's stepbrother Tolliver, her manager and traveling companion, had had a brief affair with Tabitha's aunt. The skeptical police consider Harper a prime suspect when Nunley turns up dead in the same grave after verbally abusing Harper in a hotel lobby. Because Harper and Tolliver come from a dysfunctional family, they recognize problems among the Morgensterns, and they soon unearth many snippets of information that never came to light in the original investigation. The amateur sleuths have their own near-death experience before the killer is discovered.Believers and skeptics alike will enjoy Harper's search for the truth and her changing relationship with Tolliver."(Kirkus Reviews)

Author Biography

Charlaine Harris is an award-winning writer of more than 20 fantasy, mystery and crime novels. Her Harper Connelly and Sookie Stackhouse series are New York Times bestsellers.