Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Grave Undertaking
    Unavailable
    Grave Undertaking
    Unavailable
    Grave Undertaking
    Ebook390 pages4 hours

    Grave Undertaking

    By Mark de Castrique

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    "[A] first-rate installment in an excellent series." —Booklist

    Barry Clayton has left the Charlotte police force to manage his ailing father's funeral home in the peace and quiet of the Appalachian mountains. But Buryin' Barry is an undertaker with a problem he keeps finding unwanted business. Moving a grave on a snowy mountainside should be routine. No funeral, no procession, no grieving widow to console. Routine until Barry unearths an unexpected intruder, a skeleton lying atop the original occupant. A bullet hole in the skull piques his ex-cop curiosity; the photograph of his girlfriend Susan Miller in the murdered man's wallet makes the case very personal. Suddenly, Barry's life is turned upside down, as Susan becomes the prime suspect.

    Joining forces with his pal Sheriff Tommy Lee Wadkins, Barry sets out to find the real killer. But a terrible secret had been buried in that mountain grave and one murder is only the down payment someone is willing to pay to keep it hidden. Barry is torn between discovering the solution to the crime and uncovering a part of Susan's past that could destroy their relationship. When the killer strikes again, Barry learns that even more is at stake. In a duel of deceit and misdirection, one thing becomes crystal clear. Barry's grave undertaking could very well lead to his own funeral.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSourcebooks
    Release dateDec 31, 2011
    ISBN9781615950409
    Unavailable
    Grave Undertaking
    Author

    Mark de Castrique

    Mark de Castrique grew up in the mountains of western North Carolina where many of his novels are set. He's a veteran of the television and film production industry, has served as an adjunct professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte teaching The American Mystery, and he's a frequent speaker and workshop leader. He and his wife, Linda, live in Charlotte, North Carolina. www.markdecastrique.com

    Read more from Mark De Castrique

    Related to Grave Undertaking

    Related ebooks

    Police Procedural For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Sightings

      Oct 1, 2021

      FOR MANY YEARS, in this tiny mountain town, we avoided certain signs. Oh, we had trailhead signs and wooden slabs on brush-hidden driveways adorned with family names. But there was an unspoken rule: No signs for political candidates. Even when a neig

      3 min read

    • Article

      Paltry Gestures

      Jan 5, 2021

      Paltry Gestures
      6 min read

    • Article

      Ride Of Passage

      May 17, 2021

      Ride Of Passage
      5 min read

    • Article

      Page One

      Oct 13, 2021

      “By the time you read this, you may have figured it out.” My Monticello (Henry Holt, October 2021) by Jocelyn Nicole Johnson. First book, story collection. Agent: Meredith Kaffel Simonoff. Editor: Retha Powers. Publicists: Clarissa Long and SallyAnne

      2 min read

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: David Heska Wanbli Weiden

      Dec 9, 2020

      Little did I know that, in September, just two weeks after the release of my novel, I’d be sitting in my home office in Colorado giving a reading in front of a computer, and that a completely naked eighty-year-old man would appear on the screen. The

      5 min read

    • Article

      Happy Christmas 1871!

      Nov 8, 2022

      Happy Christmas 1871!
      3 min read

    • Article

      Sex In A Pandemic

      Jan 16, 2021

      Sex In A Pandemic
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Books of Summer

      May 20, 2023

      The Books of Summer
      2 min read

    • Article

      Friends

      Sep 1, 2021

      Friends
      5 min read

    • Article

      Dark Tales

      Dec 2, 2021

      Dark Tales
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Constancy of Things

      Mar 1, 2022

      The first time Anna saw Salvatore, he asked if he could borrow her goggles. She was doing a few stretches on the pool deck, still wearing those goggles, when he approached. Something had fallen out of his swimsuit pocket, he said, and he needed to di

      24 min read

    • Article

      Your Page

      Aug 17, 2022

      Little did I know that a Country Style front cover from September 2013 would lay the foundation for one of the last and most cherished memories I would have of my mother. After a nine-year stint in Venice Beach, Los Angeles, we moved back to country

      5 min read

    • Article

      Folks’ Tale

      Nov 20, 2023

      Folks’ Tale
      3 min read

    • Article

      Asleep At The Gap

      May 7, 2019

      Asleep At The Gap
      16 min read

    • Article

      California Dream

      Feb 18, 2020

      California Dream
      2 min read

    • Article

      Salvaged & Renewed

      Jan 4, 2022

      Salvaged & Renewed
      1 min read

    • Article

      Bath Time

      Feb 11, 2023

      As they strolled through a colonnaded peristyle shaded from the blazing sun or admired the stunning frescoes covering the walls of their opulent home, the residents of the Villa Arianna would have prized their view of Mount Vesuvius not too far in th

      1 min read

    • Article

      The Stranger in My Yard

      Mar 25, 2023

      The Stranger in My Yard
      4 min read

    • Article

      Hardly Over the Hill

      Nov 8, 2022

      Hardly Over the Hill
      3 min read

    • Article

      Behind the Story

      Nov 25, 2021

      Behind the Story
      1 min read

    • Article

      When Earp Met Hearst

      Nov 8, 2022

      When Earp Met Hearst
      2 min read

    Reviews for Grave Undertaking

    4/5

    13 ratings1 review

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      I'm really enjoying this series about Barry Clayton, who gave up his police career in Charlotte to move back to his mountain hometown and tend the family funeral home when his Dad developed Alzheimer's disease. This installment finds him digging up an extra skeleton during an exhumation in neighboring Walker County -- a body with a bullet hole in the skull, clandestinely buried there back when the grave was freshly dug seven years ago. To further complicate matters, the dead man has a photo of Barry's girlfriend Susan in his wallet.As Barry digs into the man's past, evidence emerges of possible wrongdoings in the Walker County justice system -- a potential scandal serious enough to for someone to kill to cover up. As the body count begins to climb, will Barry or Susan be the next corpse headed to the graveyard?Barry also finds himself searching for his father who wanders off in the freezing cold; mulling an offer from a mega-funeral-home-corporation to buy the family business; and tending to the burial of teenage brothers killed in a car wreck just before Christmas.It's all in a week's work in the life of Buryin' Barry, and it makes for great reading.