Grave Secret is the fourth novel in the Harper Connelly Mystery Series by Charlaine Harris, and the mystery hits much closer to home for Harper and Tolliver than any of the previous books.Following their major investigation in An Ice Cold Grave in North Carolina where they uncovered the identity of a pair of serial killers, Harper and Tolliver are finally taking some time to rest and visit their half sisters, Mariella and Gracie, who live with Harper's Aunt and Uncle. While polite, her Aunt and Uncle can't help act condescending towards Harper and Tolliver for what they do for a living and can't seem to decide whether they want to two in the girls' lives. And they aren't too keen about Harper and Tolliver together as a couple.
While doing a job in town for the wealthy Joyce family heirs, Harper tells them, their Grandaddy's caretaker was killed during childbirth rather than the appendix rupture they'd all thought, and the oldest Joyce, Lizzie, sets out to find the missing baby. And then of course that catapults Harper and Tolliver into the middle of a mystery. Tolliver gets shot, Harper has a death threat on her head, Tolliver's dead beat dad, Matthew Lang, shows up begging to be in his son's life again, and of course this is the book where Harper will find out what happened to her sister Cameron all those years ago.
Grave Secret was a little slow to get started - it didn't feel as action packed as An Ice Cold Grave, and I was impatient to find out clues about what happened to Cameron. There were a few twists and shocks in the last half of the book that had me unwilling to put it down, but I'm not sure how I feel about the ending. I think I wanted something a little more climactic. I'll also admit that it took me a little while to get used to Harper and Tolliver's relationship, if only for the fact that she kept calling him her "brother" - in previous books when she realized her feelings for him, she was loathe to call him that and constantly pointed out that they weren't really related. Now she's back to calling him her brother.
All in all, it won't disappoint fans of the series, and I can't help hoping Manfred gets his own spin-off series.
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