#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • 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...

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...

This story of a young woman's confrontation with death and her past is a poetic study of human relations. "The Optimist's Daughter" is the story of Laurel McKelva Hand, a young woman who has left the South and returns, years later, to New Orleans, where her father is dying. After his death, she and her silly young stepmother go back still farther, to the small Mississippi town where she grew up. Alone in the old house, Laurel finally comes to an understanding...

Killing a rook 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.

Tom Jokinen began to seriously question the secular funeral rites that are taking over the industry. The question had such a hard grip on his Finnish soul that he decided to become an apprentice undertaker. This book is about what he found, from the mundane to the macabre. For anyone who's secretly wondered why they paid $2000 for a 5-lb bag of dust--or questioned whether that dust was really the person they loved--Curtains lifts the veil on the funeral...

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...

Four women share their secrets after the funeral of their ex-husband. It happens when they decide to ride back together and the car becomes stuck in a snow storm. They all agree he was a good-for-nothing, so why did they marry him? The setting is North Dakota.

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...

Felix Bush, a Tennessee hermit, is either feared or hated by most of the people that live in the town. One day, he gets the idea to throw one big bash before he kicks the bucket. While he is still alive and kickin' he plans his very own rollicking funeral party.