Night Shift

By Charlaine Harris

Book 3 of the Midnight, Texas series.

Here, once again, are the characters from the first two books: Fiji, Bobo, Manfred, Chuy, Joe, the Rev, Olivia, Lemuel, Mr. Snuggly and others.
A new disaster has struck the tiny town of Midnight. Lonely people are coming to the crossroads in the heart of Midnight and killing themselves. After three people have done this, the locals realize that something is seriously wrong.
The key to the mystery is in the old books that Lemuel is trying to get translated. It gradually becomes clear that a demon was interred under the crossroads hundred of years ago and that the spell that bound it there is starting to wear off. It has been calling the vulnerable to itself and gaining power from their deaths.
The Midnighters must act before it can rise and seize Fiji, the witch, and create a demonic kingdom on Earth.

This was a fairly good read. To me, the best thing about it was getting to know more about the odd inhabitants of Midnight. I hope this is not the last book in the series, as I would like to read more about that strange crew.

Day Shift

By Charlaine Harris

Book Two in the Midnight, Texas series.

Manfred the psychic is settling into his new home, getting to know the different folks who make up the core of Midnight, Texas.
He travels out of town to see a wealthy client, Rachel Goldthorpe. In a strange coincidence he sees fellow Midnighter, Olivia, dining with a couple at the same hotel where he is staying. The people Olivia is with turn up dead in an apparent murder/suicide. As an acquaintance of Olivia's, Manfred is questioned by the police as to his connection to her and to the two dead people.
Then, during his consultation with Rachel, she suddenly dies. She was an older woman and had recently been very ill. But still it seems a bit suspicious. Manfred comes under suspicion because he is being accused of stealing Rachel's jewels, which her son claims she must have been carrying in her purse at the time of her death, since he can't find them anywhere in her house.
It looks even worse for Manfred when it turns out that Rachel's cause of death was an overdose of her own medication, placed in her personal bottle of drinking water that she had with her during her meeting with Manfred. Never mind that Manfred never had access to her medications and likely didn't even know what medications she was taking. It is all just too fishy for the police and he ends up being suspect number one.

This was an OK read. Take away the fantasy elements, though, and it is just another mystery novel. The story does have a subplot about weretigers (like werewolves but with tigers) that comes together at the end with the murder mystery, but in a rather contrived way.

Review by Publishers Weekly.

Midnight Crossroad

By Charlaine Harris

Welcome to Midnight, Texas. A small town with a small population of folks, all of them a tad different from most people.
New to this small community is Manfred Bernardo. Manfred is a sometime psychic. He does most of his work online or via telephone. Most of the time he just makes it up. Occasionally he actually has a true psychic flash. Occasionally.
So this hole in the road town has a resident witch, a vampire, an assassin, a were-person, an angel, an ex-white supremacist and a serial killer. Of course, Manfred doesn't find this all out right away. But he soon figures that the leading lights of Midnight are more than they appear. It all begins with the body of a young woman, a young woman who has been missing for several weeks and of whom her friends and family are willing to commit murder to track down her killer.

This was a pretty good story, a bit spoiled by the fact that I saw the TV show version first, so no surprises in the plot. The only surprise, really, is that the book characters seem quite a bit less sure of themselves and less powerful than their TV counterparts.

Review from Kirkus Reviews.

An Ice Cold Grave

By Charlaine Harris

Harper Connelly has a talent. She can locate dead bodies and tell how they died. She is helped in this by her stepbrother, Tolliver, with whom she is madly in love but won't tell him because she fears he only sees her as his sister.
They have been asked to investigate the disappearance of several teen boys in a small rural town. Paid by the wealthy grandmother of one of the missing teens, Harper soon locates the burial site of the boys, putting herself and Tolliver under suspicion by the local law enforcement.  Even though they couldn't possibly have had anything to do with the crime, the fact that Harper knows where all the graves are and exactly how they died has to be investigated. So, stuck in the small town by the demands of the police and then by bad winter weather, it isn't long until the killer seeks Harper out and tries to add her to the long list of victims.

This was a pretty good story. However, the subject matter is very gross and disgusting. So much so, that I very much doubt I will be reading another story in this series. This just went too far for my taste.

Real Murders

By Charlaine Harris

Aurora Teagarden is a young librarian in a suburban town and a member of club called "Real Murders." This club, consisting of about 12 members, looks into famous murder cases. Once a month they get together and one member makes a presentation about an old murder case. One of the members is a policeman. One is obsessed with the Lizzie Borden case. One is fascinated by massacres. On this particular night, Aurora is doing a presentation on the Wallace case, which concerns a man who was accused of bashing in his wife's head with a hammer.
As the meeting is just getting started, Aurora is concerned that one of the members who arrived early is now missing. She goes looking for her and finds her dead in another room with her head bashed in. The crime scene has been staged to resemble the Wallace crime scene, the case Aurora was going to present to the club. When the police arrive, Aurora points out the similarities to the old case, but the police are not that interested in her speculations.
Soon is becomes apparent that their town is in the middle of a murder spree. A politician is murdered in a manner similar to the murder of Marat, a French revolutionary who was stabbed to death while taking a bath. Two old people are chopped up in imitation of the Lizzie Borden case. And the logical suspects are the members of the Real Murder club, including Aurora Teagarden, especially when the murder weapons are discovered in the possession of the various members.

This was an OK story. The motive for the murders was weak, I thought. I just didn't buy it. Also, the author brings Aurora's little six-year-old brother in at the end of the story just to make him a target and for Aurora to risk her neck to save him. Other than that the boy did not factor into the story at all. I don't like reading about little children being tortured and abused even if they are just fictional children. It was an OK read, but I doubt I will read another in the Aurora Teagarden series.

Sweet and Deadly

By Charlaine Harris

Catherine Linton has returned to her hometown, moving into her childhood home after her parents' recent death six months ago. They died in a car crash caused by someone tampering with their vehicle. Who did it and why is unknown. Catherine's dad was a beloved local physician in the small town where they lived and why anyone would want to kill him & his wife is a mystery.
One morning Catherine stumbles across the body of her father's former nurse whose head has been bashed in and her body dumped in an abandoned house on farmland that Catherine inherited from her parents. As the police investigate the murdered woman they discover that she was blackmailing people and also doing illegal abortions. Perhaps this woman found out something while working for Catherine's dad and then tried to use that info to blackmail the wrong person, a person who may have already been willing to kill to protect that secret.
It's a small town and, realizing the killer could be any one of her neighbors or friends leaves Catherine chilled and fighting a descent into the depression that almost consumed her when her parents died. Yet she manages to hang on and eventually unearth the information that points directly at the evil person behind four murders.

This was a typical murder mystery, nothing special or particularly captivating about this story. Catherine is an OK heroine if somewhat of a cold fish. Indeed she is described as a person who doesn't say much, given the nickname of the Sphinx when in high school. She's a person that is hard to warm up to, in the story and as a character the reader is supposed to care about. When the reason behind the murders is revealed, it is a bit of a stretch to think that anyone would kill to keep a secret like that hidden and why the killer felt compelled to do so is never really explained in any real depth. It's an OK story.
Charlaine Harris is better known for her Sookie Stackhouse stories. This story is not of that genre. It contains no vampires, werewolves or witches. It's just a regular type murder mystery, nothing supernatural. Just a heads up for those who might pick up the book expecting something like the Stackhouse stories.

Grave Surprise

By Charlaine Harris

The second in the new series by Harris, the first being Grave Secret.
Harper Connelly had the misfortune of being struck by lightning when she was fifteen. In addition to some debilitating physical side effects from the event such as headaches and weakness, Harper gained the ability to sense the presence of dead bodies and their cause of death. She now uses her ability to help the police and relatives of missing persons, assisted by her step-brother, Tolliver.
In this story, Harper is hired by a college professor to locate bodies in an old graveyard. The records for the graveyard had been long lost but were recently found. The professor, Clyde Nunley, wants to use the graveyard to prove that Harper is a fake. Too bad for the professor when she correctly locates and reveals the cause of death for each grave they look at. At the last grave, Harper senses the presence of two bodies, one of which is a little girl, a little girl who has been missing for almost two years, a little girl named Tabitha.
Harper already was familiar with this missing person. She was hired by the girl's family when Tabitha first went missing but Harper was unable to locate her at that time. Harper and her brother, Tolliver, get the creepy feeling that it is no coincidence that they were taken to the site of Tabitha's grave. What they have to try to figure out now is who gave their names to Nunley and how that person is connected to Tabitha's death. Things become even more dangerous when Harper finds a newly dead body in the same grave Tabitha had recently occupied.
Not only does Harper need to unravel the mystery surrounding Tabitha and her family but she also takes a closer look at her relationship with her stepbrother, Tolliver. And what about the new man in her life, the very pierced and telepathic Manfred, who seems like he would very much enjoy spending time with Harper.

This is only the second book by Harris that I have read and having started with the vampire series and not liking it that much, I didn't really expect much from this book. I am pleased to say that I enjoyed it very much and will look for others in the Harper Connelly series.

Review by Publishers Weekly:   https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-425-21203-5.

Definitely Dead

By Charlaine Harris

This is the sixth book in Charlaine's vampire series, but the first one I have read.
Sookie is a waitress who can read minds. Her ability has lead her into a life of danger and intrigue involving vampires, were-creatures, fairies, demons, witches and who knows what else.
In this story, Sookie has to go to New Orleans to deal with her dead cousin Hadley's affairs. She also investigates the circumstances that lead to Hadley's death. Hadley, by the way, was a vampire and the homosexual lover of the queen of the vampires of Louisiana. While in New Orleans, Sookie is required to attend a party given by the queen and her new husband, the vampire king of Arkansas. Sookie also has a hunky new boyfriend, a were-tiger named Quinn.
Here is a typical day in the life of Sookie: Meet your cousin's landlady and discover she is a witch. Find a dead body in your cousin's closet. Discover the body is actually not dead but is a newly-created vampire and he is just waking up very, very hungry. Get attacked and bitten by said vampire, who also turns out to be the missing employee of your new boyfriend. Go to the hospital to get bandaged up and find out your old boyfriend, Bill, only seduced you because he was ordered to by the queen of the vampires. Walk home from the hospital, leaving without seeing a doctor, and break in to your dead cousin's apartment because you don't have a key and are too upset to ask for help, and finally, wake up the next morning to find your fairy godmother is lying in your bed with you.
The story reminded me of Laurell K. Hamilton's work. She writes similar stuff. Except Charlaine's story doesn't have the graphic sex or quite as much mayhem as Hamilton's. Also, although I may not be remembering correctly, but I don't think Laurell has fairies or demons in her stories. But other than that, it was really similar.

The problem I had with the story, coming into it so far along in the series, was keeping track of all the characters and their relationship to Sookie. I picked up the book because it was recommended to me as a funny read. I didn't find it funny or even mildly amusing, so that was disappointing. Also, I am not a big fan of vampire fiction. But neither of those things are this novel's fault. Nevertheless, I  didn't really care for this story. I didn't hate it, but I won't be looking to read the first five books in the series.

Review from Publishers Weekly:   https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-441-01400-2.