Death And Douglas

A warm and beautifully written-but also dark and macabre-middle grade novel about a boy whose family runs the local small-town funeral home. Douglas has grown up around the business of death. Generations of his family have run the Mortimer Family Funeral Home. The mortician and gravediggers are all his buddies. And the display room of caskets is an awesome place for hide and seek. It's business as usual in Douglas's small New England town. Until one day an incredibly out of the ordinary murder victim is brought to the funeral home. And more startling: others follow. On the cusp of Halloween, a serial killer has arrived. And unsatisfied with the small-town investigation, Douglas enlists his friends to help him solve the mystery. With sumptuous descriptions of a bucolic town and it's quirky people, fascinating yet middle grade-appropriate insider information about the funeral process, and a crackling mystery with a heart-pounding conclusion-Death and Douglas has something for readers young and old.