Find Your Way to My Grave - (A Carrie Lisbon Mystery) by Chris Keefer (Paperback)

About the Book

It's November 1900 in rural Hope Bridge, New York. The town is bustling with the chaos of construction workers as a new iron trestle rises. Amid the clamor, the body of the bridge builder is discovered, plunging the community into shock.

Book Synopsis

'There's a body! Down by the bridge!'

It's November 1900 in rural Hope Bridge, New York. The town is bustling with the chaos of construction workers, steam engines, and horse-drawn wagons as a new iron trestle rises over the Duncan Creek. Amid the clamor, the body of the bridge builder is discovered, plunging the community into shock.

Undertaker Carrie Lisbon is once again summoned by Sheriff Delphius Morgan to act as his 'keen observer.' She has a knack for solving the problems of the dead. She's good at what she does: embalming and laying out bodies, arranging funeral flowers, taking mortuary photographs, and keeping big secrets buried deep.

With Election Day just a week away, Carrie and Morgan's unconventional partnership is targeted by Morgan's rival for sheriff, a slick interloper who's running a dirty campaign, and thinks there's more to Carrie and Del's relationship than just a dead body. As if a murder case and political turmoil isn't enough, Morgan's teenage son, Eddie, goes missing.

When Carrie teams up with Morgan's steadfast deputy, a scrappy kid from the town dump, and an unlikely ally, they tease out clues to the murder while they search for Eddie. But as personal and political pressures mount, and she gets closer to identifying the killer, those big secrets threaten to become unburied, and Carrie has to make some hard choices to keep them where they are.

Review Quotes

"A stunning peek into a vivid past replete with burgeoning feminism, the development of mortuary science, and early photography capturing the seamy corruption of a repressed age. A winner. Bravo!" --Gary Earl Ross, author of the Nickel City mysteries.

"Keefer continues the adventures of Carrie Lisbon, one of the most extraordinary characters in historical fiction today. Carrie-a woman undertaker in rural New York in 1900-investigates a suspicious death, discovers a blackmail scheme, and negotiates an adulterous affair-in ways that will surprise and impress Keefer's readers." -- Marlie Parker Wasserman, author of Inferno on Fifth

"Awash in period detail and replete with indelible characters, including a street urchin of Dickensian aspect, a dogged but ethically compromised sheriff, and an irrepressible if well-meaning muckraker, Find Your Way to My Grave is both a taut murder mystery and a deftly drawn character study of an imperfect heroine. As Carrie Lisbon fearlessly peels back layer upon layer of evildoing to solve the heinous crime, she must also come to terms with a lapse in moral judgment that threatens not only to undermine the investigation, but permanently damage herself and those she holds most dear." --Norman Woolworth, The Lafitte Affair: A Bruneau Abellard Novel

"Keefer has created a unique and unconventional character in Lisbon, a woman with intelligence, talent, and courage at a time when a female working in forensics was frowned upon. I loved the period detail, setting, and ambiance in Find Your Way to My Grave. As a writer of historical fiction myself, I also enjoyed learning about how things were done in Victorian America, particularly the embalming procedure and the art of photography in which the protagonist excels. Keefer's tale is a cleverly crafted and intriguing read."-- Skye Alexander, author of Running in the Shadows and the Lizzie Crane Jazz Age mystery series