A Grave Undertaking

A small-town cozy mystery where a new grandstand digs up a secret the fair would rather leave buried.

A funeral home is sponsoring the new grandstand at the Harrow County Fair. Dorothy Meade finds the slogan unintentionally funny. What turns up beneath the old foundation is anything but.

In Cobb's Mill, Indiana, young surveyor Pete Sorrel discovers human bones and an old canning jar in the excavated ground. The fair's heritage keepers want the remains quietly explained and the construction back on schedule. Pete insists on documenting what he found.

Then Pete is found dead in the pit, and the jar disappears. Another accident would be convenient for almost everyone. Dorothy's beagle Reserve is troubled by the disturbed earth, and Dorothy can't stop thinking about a tomato jar that doesn't belong in the story she's being told.

With Inspector Del Rourke unusually interested in the fair's beginnings, Dorothy follows old maps, board minutes, and the clues left by an ordinary kitchen skill. When suspicion reaches her friend Bunny Frantz, the investigation becomes painfully personal. Giving a forgotten person a name now means challenging people who have spent their lives protecting the town's version of its past.

A Grave Undertaking is Book 5 of The County Fair Mysteries, a warm, wry amateur-sleuth mystery about buried history, tested friendship, and a judge who knows that even an old jar has a story to tell.

For readers who love:

•   Buried secrets and small-town history

•   Unusual clues drawn from canning and everyday expertise

•   Older sleuths whose friendships matter

•   Dry institutional humor and a beagle with a nose for trouble