Fatal Undertaking
A Buryin Barry Mystery

You want to borrow a casket? Funeral director and parttime sheriff Barry Clayton finds United States Junior Chamber member Archie Donovans 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 childrens hospital. But when the president of the Jaycees is 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 had even been the intended target. Barry finds his police work and personal life on a collision course as his exwife Rachel comes to town with high hopes of using the story to launch her TVnetwork career.She begins prying into the lives of Gainesboros most distinguished citizens and creates a backlash that leaves another body in its wake.Old wounds are ripped open, family rifts exposed, and a criminal enterprise revealed that cuts to the heart of the community. Barry Clayton must follow a trail of clues as winding as a forest path.The unexpected destination: a mountainside of Christmas trees.Somewhere behind these symbols of peace and goodwill lurks a killer.Unmasking him will be a fatal undertaking. A Poisoned Pen Press Mystery