Crowley County Combined Library

"What's the one secret no one knows about you? Archie Mint has a secret. He's led a charmed life--he's got a beautiful wife, two impressive kids, and a successful military career. But when he's killed while trying to stop a robbery in his own home, his family is shattered--and then shocked when the other shoe drops. Mint's been hiding criminal secrets none of them could have imagined. While working on Mint's body before his funeral, mortician 'Zig'...

Most people want to avoid thinking about death, but Caitlin Doughty-a twenty-something with a degree in medieval history and a flair for the macabre-took a job at a crematory, turning morbid curiosity into her lifes work. Thrown into a profession of gallows humor and vivid characters (both living and very dead), Caitlin learned to navigate the secretive culture of those who care for the deceased. Smoke Gets in Your Eyes tells an unusual coming-of-age...

A shoreside burial coordinator who lives in self-enforced exile as penance for a long-ago mistake and a performer with a floating circus face unexpected life changes and new opportunities in the wake of an offshore storm.

"Set during Reconstruction-era New Orleans, this new work from the acclaimed author of Between Earth and Sky is a powerful story of human resilience--and of the unlikely bonds that hold fast even in our darkest moments. "The dead can't hurt you--only the living can." Effie Jones, a former slave who escaped to the Union side as a child, knows the truth of her words. Taken in by an army surgeon and his wife during the War, she learned to read and write,...

"A propulsive contemporary women's fiction debut with dark humor and messy yet warm-hearted family dynamics, perfect for fans of Claire Lombardo's The Most Fun We Ever Had and Emma Straub's All Adults Here. All families are messy. Some are disasters. Natalie Walker is the reason her older brother and sister went to prison over 15 years ago. She fled California shortly after that fateful night and hasn't spoken to anyone in her family since. Ten years...

Mary Crampton has spent all of her thirty years in Petroleum, a small Western town once supported by a powerful grain company. Living at home, she works as the embalmer in her fathers mortuary: an unlikely job that has long marked her as an outsider. Yet, to Mary there is a satisfying art to positioning and styling each body to capture the essence of a subjects life. Though some townsfolk pretend that the community is thriving, the truth is that Petroleum...

Coroner J.J. Graves and Jack Lawson investigate the murder of a victim who got exactly what he deserved. But justice is blind, and they have to put their personal feelings aside to hunt a ruthless killer.