An Ice Cold Grave by Charlaine Harris

Harper Connelly can hear dead people. And see them, too. Ever since she was hit by Lightning, she's been able to see and hear the dead calling out to her, telling her their stories. But the most important ones are those who were murdered, buried in shallow graves. They want to be found, for their families and loved ones to find them and bury them in proper graves.

Harper doesn't travel alone- she has her step-brother Tolliver who travels with her. Unrelated to her by blood, they share an upbringing. Her mother married his father, both promptly sank into a world composed of booze and drugs. Each had only the other to rely on after Harper's older sister disappeared, and Harper loves Tolliver in a way that would unsettle many people, but even though they are only step-siblings, and not blood relations, each tends to find someone else to have a physical relationship with as they move on to a new town, drawn by a payment they need to live on to find more bodies long gone and long-buried, but not forgotten.

This time, Harper and Tolliver are in Doraville North Carolina to find the bodies of missing boys. Six boys, gone missing over as many years. The Sheriff questions them, then takes them to the woman who paid to employ them. She takes them to where her grandson, Jeff's cellphone, was found. And it is there that Harper feels the bodies. Not six, but eight of them, and finding them really hurts Harper. She can feel what has been done to them, and it's horrible. Rape, beating, knives, blunt objects... she nearly passes out.

Afterwards, all she wants to do is leave, but after the sheriff sends her back to the grandmother's house, she waits for a few hours and finally leaves with Tolliver to go back to the Hotel. When the sheriff finally arrives to talk to them, she wants them gone for a while. Harper and Tolliver agree to go, but Harper is attacked outside the hotel room and ends up in the hospital. As she recovers, Xylda Bernardo, a psychic who is mostly a fraud, shows up with her grandson, Manfred.

As Xylda muddies the waters, Harper tries to escape the hospital as quickly as she can. But the man who killed those boys is still around, and wants Harper dead. As she and Tolliver finally give into the feelings between them during a winter storm, they get pulled into the still-brewing case in Doraville, a case that has wide-ranging implications for Doraville, and for Harper and Tolliver as well. But will they be able to survive the case, or will it take so much out of them that they will have nothing more to give?

I love this series. Make no mistake: Charlaine Harris is well-known for her Sookie Stackhouse books, but I really love these books just as much or more than the Sookie books. Part of it is that instead of really developing just one small town, Harper and Tolliver are continually on the move, so each book introduces a new place for them to inhabit. And Charlaine Harris makes each one different while mining the tropes of small towns everywhere; generally insular people, but hidden secrets everywhere.

That's what she does best, brings those hidden secrets to light in a way that is shocking, but also understandable. Not ever fun to read, but you do get to understand what motivates the people who did the murder. It's almost like finding the body is the easy part- it the understanding of how and why that comes hardest- and this crime is especially shocking. Part of the attraction of the books is getting to know all those small-town people, each one very different.

I love these books, and if you enjoy the Sookie Stackhouse books but are looking for something just a little different by the same author, you should give this series a try. Some people may find it shocking how Harper and Tolliver's relationship turns physical in this book, but they aren't related by blood, so I didn't really find it as shocking as some did. If you haven't picked it up, now is a fine time to start. Highly recommended.