What I’m Reading -- Dead Connection by Charlie Price

Fiction, Teen -- This first novel from Charlie Price is a god one. I’m not certain why I grabbed this in the first place since I’m not really into creepy otherworldly type things, but this is more of a mystery than you would expect from reading the synopsis. Murray is a weird, lonely high school kid who hangs out in his town’s cemetery where he begins to hear the thoughts of the dead and has conversations with them. At about the same time that a fellow high school student is murdered, he starts to hear a new voice. Pearl, whose father runs the cemetery, becomes intrigued as she sees this odd kid hanging around the graveyard all of the time and becomes involved as well. Meanwhile, Deputy Sheriff Gates, the most interesting character in the book, begins to feel pressure from the community to solve the murder. It turns out that his only connections are a disturbed young man who may have seen something and Murray, who is hard to believe. The whodunit part of the story and Gates’ investigation are very well written and interesting. Readers of supernatural stories and mysteries should both appreciate this story.