A Quiet Undertaking — Penny Warner

Macavity Award-winning author Penny Warner knows there's no rest for the dead....

Life is never dull in the California Gold Country town of Flat Skunk. But deaf journalist Connor Westphal is shocked all the same when she learns that boxes of human ashes have been found stashed in a nearby self-storage facility. The space is leased to one Jasper Coyne, a bourbon-happy fisherman hired by the Memory Kingdom Memorial Park to scatter the ashes at sea.

Connor thinks the scandal will make great copy for her paper, the Eureka!--until Jasper is murdered and suspicion falls on Connor's own best friend, Memory Kingdom owner Del Rey Montez. Connor is sure Del Rey is innocent. To prove it, Connor must navigate mortician politics and skinhead teens to untangle the secrets of Del Rey's past. But when she gets too close to the truth, she makes an enemy who's determined to make sure the intrepid reporter bites the dust along with her biggest scoop of the year.