The Body Finder by Kimberly Derting

#1 in The Body Finder series
Published March 16, 2010 by HarperTeen
4 Stars

Goodreads Review
Violet Ambrose is grappling with two major issues: Jay Heaton and her morbid secret ability. While the sixteen-year-old is confused by her new feelings for her best friend since childhood, she is more disturbed by her "power" to sense dead bodies—or at least those that have been murdered. Since she was a little girl, she has felt the echoes that the dead leave behind in the world... and the imprints that attach to their killers.

Violet has never considered her strange talent to be a gift; it mostly just led her to find the dead birds her cat had tired of playing with. But now that a serial killer has begun terrorizing her small town, and the echoes of the local girls he's claimed haunt her daily, she realizes she might be the only person who can stop him.

Despite his fierce protectiveness over her, Jay reluctantly agrees to help Violet on her quest to find the murderer—and Violet is unnerved to find herself hoping that Jay's intentions are much more than friendly. But even as she's falling intensely in love, Violet is getting closer and closer to discovering a killer... and becoming his prey herself.

Review:  The body finder has a really interesting premise that I thoroughly enjoyed.  I really liked the idea of the echos, how they worked and how they helped Violet solve the murders.  For me they were a unique concept that really added to the suspense of the mystery. 

Violet was a fairly likable main character in general, even if she is obsessively boy crazy.  I mean, I know most 16 year old girls are obsessively boy crazy, but Violet was taking it to a new level.  The teenager angst was a little too heavy for my taste, and I would have preferred more murder and mayhem, and less high school drama.  (though I have to admit the kissing scenes were pretty great, Derting knows how to write sexual tension (comeone adult romance novel!))

Speaking of murder and mayhem, I really loved the serial killer!  Some of the chapters were written from his perspective and they were FREAKY!  I really loved these chapters beacuse they were perfectly timed and added a lot of great suspense to the story. I was really surprised by some of the plot twists and had absolutely no idea about the killer's identity, so that's a pretty good sign of a good mystery in my book!

Overall The Body Finder is a really cool start to this unique murder mystery series.  I'm really curious to see what kind of bad guy will show up in the next book, Desires of the Dead.  The title hints that maybe there will be more ghosty happenings?  Who knows, but I'm really excited to find out!