Fatal Undertaking

✍ Scribed by Castrique, Mark de

• Book ID: 108245707
• Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press
• Year: 2011
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 133 KB
• Series: Buryin' Barry 5
• Category: Fiction

✦ Synopsis

“You want to borrow a casket?”

Funeral director and part-time sheriff Barry Clayton finds Jaycee member Archie Donovan’s request absurd until he learns the casket will be the centerpiece of the Jaycees’ haunted house, a charity event with all proceeds going to the children’s hospital.

But when the president of the Jaycees is found murdered in the casket on Halloween, the national press descends upon Gainesboro to cover the bizarre crime. Sheriff Tommy Lee Wadkins assigns Barry to be the lead investigator of a case that presents no motive and no suspects. Then someone fires a shot at Archie Donovan, and Barry wonders whether the victim in the casket was even the intended target.

Barry finds his police work and personal life on a collision course as his ex-wife Rachel comes to town with high hopes of using the story to launch her TV network career. She begins prying into the lives of Gainesboro’s most distinguished citizens and creates a backlash that leaves another body in its wake.

Barry Clayton must follow a trail of clues as winding as a forest path. The unexpected destination: a mountainside of Christmas trees. Somewhere behind them lurks a killer. Unmasking him may be a fatal undertaking.

From Booklist

Funeral director and part-time sheriff Barry Clayton’s latest case begins when local businessman and Jaycee member Archie Donovan asks to borrow a casket for a Halloween haunted house. The charity event turns into a murder investigation when the Jaycee president is murdered in the casket, and the national press descends upon sleepy Gainesboro, North Carolina. As Barry investigates, readers will learn that North Carolina has a new major cash crop, Christmas trees, and that the workers who tend the trees are sometimes illegal immigrants. The murder victim, son of a local power broker, had plenty of enemies; but he was not the person who was supposed to be the ghost in the casket. Was he murdered by mistake? Complicating matters is the fact that one of the reporters on the scene is Barry’s ex-wife, Rachel. In the fifth in his Undertaking series, de Castrique gives readers a tantalizing mystery full of humor and eccentric characters, along with a nice dollop of current social issues. --Barbara Bibel

Review

''For readers who enjoy mysteries with a bit more depth, de Castrique offers original plots, strikingly human characters, and a heartwarming portrait of American culture. His writing is to be savored.'' --Library Journal

''De Castrique has married the complexity and fast pace of a police procedural with the folksy setting and lovable characters of a cozy.'' --Publishers Weekly

''Strong characters and engaging setting add up to a thoroughly enjoyable yarn.'' --Booklist

''De Castrique has married the complexity and fast pace of a police procedural with the folksy setting and lovable characters of a cozy.'' --Publishers Weekly

''Strong characters and engaging setting add up to a thoroughly enjoyable yarn.'' --Booklist