Only the Dead Within
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- €9.99
Publisher Description
Between mysterious missing persons cases, unsolved murders, and the menacing specter of an eternally blood-thirsty grave digger’s ghost, the town of Gold Creek, Michigan, has a grim reputation, and so does the wealthy, ruthless Gold family, who run the local funeral home and cemetery—and may be behind it all . . .
Yet another teen has gone missing from the Gold Memorial Gardens, and Child Protective Services Investigator Claire Underwood isn't giving up until she finds him. For Claire, solving the case is more than business. Years ago, she lost a friend in that cemetery.
Over time, the authorities deemed all the disappeared teens runaways, while local legend blamed the ghost of the murderous grave digger—much to the satisfaction of the Golds, also known as the “Ghouls.” Claire has always suspected the Golds were involved, including in some recent murders among their own. She went to high school with Noah Gold. He was very quiet, and very intense. Like someone with something to hide.
Noah is sick of being cast in the same light as his conniving, money-hungry family. He’s still a bit anti-social, but he’s just as determined as Clare to unearth the truth—and finally bury the legend of the grave digger. With a common goal, he and Claire join forces, but it’s a quest that puts them in mortal danger. Only with the help of the local sheriff—whose own brother vanished years ago—do they have a chance of surviving. Yet, the truth that awaits them is more terrifying than any ghost . . .
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Childs follows The House by the Cemetery with an overstuffed gothic soap opera that lacks the punch of its predecessor. The town of Gold Creek, Mich., is ruled by the wealthy Golds, owners of Gold Memorial Gardens cemetery and funeral home, where the extended family lives together as they wait for late patriarch Gregory Gold's will to go through probate. Noah Gold, one of Gregory's sons, tends the graveyard, which local legend maintains is haunted by a ghostly gravedigger. One morning, Noah finds the body of Tyler Hicks, his teenage helper, on the grounds with his head bashed in. After learning of Tyler's death, Child Protective Services agent Claire Underwood returns to Gold Creek—the setting of her own traumatic childhood—to ensure the safety of Tyler's younger sibilngs. Noah and Claire team up to probe Tyler's death, which dredges up difficult memories for Claire about a friend who vanished from the same graveyard when they were teenagers. Soon, their investigation puts them in the crosshairs of a serial killer. Childs piles on inherited traumas and missing persons until the plot is full to bursting, but the underwhelming resolution deflates the built-up tension. This is a letdown.
