Winter Snow is busy building her obituary writing business when a burning building and a dead body send their town of Ridgefield, CT, into investigation mode. Good friend and reporter Scoop knows some incriminating details, but he is reluctant to share and reveal his source. Can Winter solve the crime and keep Scoop out of jail in GRAVE WORDS, the second Deadly Deadline Mystery by Gerri Lewis?
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When it is revealed the dead body is a local homeless man named Chester, Winterβs friend Carla asks her to write the manβs obituary. As Winter starts looking into Chesterβs life, she finds out a lot about the man no one really knew. As she digs deeper and searches the obituaries for other clues, she finds herself being followed by a black truck, uncovering a shady cemetery plot business, receiving threatening letters, getting trapped in a coffin, learning about collectibles, and catching a killerβs attention. Can she put all the pieces together before someone writes Winterβs obituary next?
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GRAVE WORDS is a fun, atmospheric East Coast cozy with small-town charm, familiar hangouts, and colorful locals that create a warm and engaging mystery. The plot is well-developed with several layers that include a multitude of players with different motivations. From Winterβs lakeside cottage to Popβs Place and the funeral home, Winter navigates a complex puzzle of scam artists and insurance fraudsters to uncover the truth. Her friends, Carla and Scoop, are in on the action and provide some levity, while the professional boundaries between Winter and her detective boyfriend, Kip, add a nice layer of tension to the storytelling. GRAVE WORDS is a strong and entertaining second entry in this delightful series that will have readers looking forward to future installments.
In the second installment of the Deadly Deadlines mysteries, obituary writer Winter Snow faces her biggest challenge yet when the body of a homeless man is found in a burning building and her best friend is the main suspect, perfect for fans of Eva Gates and Kate Carlisle.
Winter Snow has had it! With her business in a death drought, her best friend Scoop implicated in a string of arsons, and an obituary listing Winter herself as deceased, her life is heating up. But just as she’s trying to cool things down, she receives her newest assignment: an obituary for Chester, a homeless man found in a burning building.
Promising the local funeral home manager that she will have the obituary by the deadline, Winter is stonewalled at every turn, failing to discover Chester’s last name, or where he came from. When it is discovered that Chester was murdered and that the fire was set to cover it up, all fingers immediately point to Scoop. Not only is Scoop a person of interest in the arsons, he was also the last person to see Chester alive.
As more nails are pounded into Scoop’s coffin, Winter’s uncle Richard hopes to help by inviting the notorious town gossips, The Nosy Parkers, to a neighborhood food fest. Unfortunately, the breadcrumbs they toss set murder in motion.
More determined than ever, Winter must figure out the twists and turns of the case to clear Scoop’s name, putting her on a deadly deadline to solve the murder and avoid meeting the same grave consequences.
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