High school all-American Neely Crenshaw was probably the best quarterback ever to play for the legendary Messina Spartans. Fifteen years have gone by since those glory days, and Neely has come home to Messina to bury Coach Eddie Rake, the man who molded the Spartans into an unbeatable football dynasty. Now, as Coach Rake's "boys" sit in the bleachers waiting for the dimming field lights to signal his passing, they replay the old games, relive the...

From Ann Cleeves--bestselling and award-winning author of the Vera and Shetland series, both of which are hit TV shows--comes the first in a gripping new series. "Ann Cleeves is one of my favorite mystery writers."--Louise Penny In North Devon, where two rivers converge and run into the sea, Detective Matthew Venn stands outside the church as his father's funeral takes place. Once loved and cherished, the day Matthew left the strict evangelical community...

Describes the wide variety of human remains, the use and abuse of them, what they reveal about life in the past, and contemporary attitudes toward the dead.

"Bopped on the head from a falling plastic Santa, local undertaker Emma Lee Raines is told she's suffering from 'funeral trauma'. It's trauma all right, because the not-so-dearly departed keep talking to her. Take Ruthie Sue Payne--innkeeper, gossip queen, and arch-nemesis of Emma Lee's granny--she's adamant that she didn't just fall down those stairs. She was pushed. Ruthie has no idea who wanted her pushing up daisies. All she knows is that...

Fascinated by our pervasive fear of dead bodies, mortician Caitlin Doughty set out to discover how other cultures care for the dead. In rural Indonesia, she watches a man clean and dress his grandfather's mummified body, which has resided in the family home for two years. In La Paz, she meets Bolivian natitas (cigarette-smoking, wish-granting human skulls), and in Tokyo she encounters the Japanese kotsuage ceremony, in which relatives use chopsticks...

"The Williams family returns to Eulalia, Georgia, for the funeral of their beloved patriarch. When a secret is revealed during the eulogy, the family is left reeling: If their grandparents perfect marriage was anything but, what hope do they have of finding love?"-- When Gerry, the beloved Williams patriarch, dies suddenly, his grandchildren flock from across the country to the family home in Eulalia, Georgia. But when Gerry's best friend steps up...

After the British Prime Minister passes away under mysterious circumstances, his funeral is a must-attend event for leaders of the western world. However, what starts out as the most protected event on Earth turns into a deadly plot to kill the world's most powerful leaders, and unleash a terrifying vision of the future. Only three people have any hope of stopping it: the President of the United States, his formidable Secret Service head, and an English...

While driving to the funeral of a friend, a couple married twenty-eight years examine the expectations and disappointments of their marriage.

"Set in Iran and New York City, Man of My Time tells the story of Hamid Mozaffarian, who is as alienated from himself as he is from the world around him. After decades of ambivalent work as an interrogator with the Iranian regime, Hamid travels on a diplomatic mission to New York, where he encounters his estranged family and retrieves the ashes of his father, whose dying wish was to be buried in Iran. Tucked in his pocket throughout the trip, the...

Killing a bird with his slingshot as a boy, William Bellman grows up a wealthy family man unaware of how his act of childhood cruelty will have terrible consequences until a wrenching tragedy compels him to enter into a macabre bargain with a stranger in black