Grave Concerns [Hardcover]

Rebecca Tope (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 10, 2002

With Peaceful Repose Cemetery, Drew Slocombe is determined to revolutionize the entire death industry and make cheap, ecologically sound burials a popular choice. Unfortunately, Drew's gravedigger has just discovered that their cemetery has one too many corpses. The body of an elderly woman has been occupying the field for months before Drew opened for business. The police don't appear to be particularly concerned by the death, and seem to think that the body is that of a vagrant. But for Drew, things don't add up: even if the woman died a natural death, someone was obviously responsible for burying her.

The mystery deepens when Genevieve Slater turns up at Drew's door. Drew has always fought an illicit attraction to Genevieve-an attraction that hasn't faded with time. But it's Drew's reputation for amateur detective work that Genevieve is now interested in. With reasons of her own for not wanting to contact the police, she wants to hire Drew to prove that the body is that of her missing mother. Drew realizes helping her might get him in trouble with the law, but, for a man looking to escape both money worries and marriage problems. Genevieve proves impossible to resist.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

When undertaker Drew Slocome (who returns from Rebecca Tope's Dark Undertakings) discovers an extra body in his environmentally conscious Peaceful Repose Cemetery, he jumps at the chance to investigate, because "mysteries existed to be solved like Everest." The police only know that the unidentified old woman didn't die of natural causes, and as for what the townsfolk know well, several of them just aren't telling in Grave Concerns.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

This British whodunit features an unusual hero in Drew Slocombe, a former nurse who has become an undertaker and opened an alternative cemetery where he promotes ecologically sound, environmentally friendly (and much cheaper) burials. But just as business is picking up, the body of a woman is found in a shallow grave in an undeveloped part of the cemetery. She wears only a cotton shroud and an unusual necklace, with little else to identify her. When word about the discovery gets around, Drew receives a call from Genevieve Slater, whom Drew met (and was attracted to) when he and his wife wanted to buy the same house as Genevieve and her husband. The contact sets off warning bells for Drew, but when Genevieve offers him 2,000 to find out if the dead woman is her mother, Drew can't resist. Tope's fourth book is competently written, with offbeat characters, an inventive plot, and some biting commentary on the funeral business. A natural pairing with the genre's only other undertaker-sleuth, Tim Cockey's Hitchcock Sewell, although this series is less given to madcap humor. Emily Melton
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Minotaur Books; 1st edition (June 10, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312281277
• ISBN-13: 978-0312281274
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,806,494 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars Flaky and unfocussed, June 19, 2009

By 

Srdjan Pesic (Minneapolis, Mn United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Grave Concerns (Hardcover)

I am a passionate lover of mysteries. All kinds of books. Historical, hard-boiled, procedurals. I've been known even to give a whirl to a cozy from time to time. But, unfortunately this cozy is not the one I could possibly recommend to anybody. We learn a lot of details about funeral home bussiness, about a delivery of a baby at home, and all sorts of things not connected with the story. Characters are endlessly annoying and dislikable.And a puzzle, supposed center of the book, just lamely fizzles on last few pages. Unfortunately I have three more books at home written by Ms. Tope. At some point, I will feel compelled to read them to justify the money I spent. Hopefully they are less flaky and unfocussed then this one.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Author unsure of whether she was writing a novel or mystery, October 24, 2005

By 

M. C. Crammer (Decatur, GA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Grave Concerns (Hardcover)

As a novel, it wasn't bad. As a mystery, it was slow, and the ending seemed hurried, particularly since the rest of the book was so slow. There was a LOT of time spent talking about the detective character's marriage, relationship with wife and daughter, lust for another woman, difficulties with business, etc. There was, in short, more time spent on that than is usual in mysteries. On the plus side, the quality of writing was fairly high, although I wish I had liked some character in the book.

The story involves a man with a wife and baby who has begun a business providing natural burials on a small plot of land he inherited (if these graves are going to be undisturbed, he's going to run out of land fairly soon if business picks up). Business is very slow, however, which is a recurrent theme in the book (too recurrent). His gravedigger discovers a grave on the land that they didn't dig, so the police are called in and find a body of a woman who apparently died a natural death. But who is she? In the meantime, a woman from our detective-natural burial-ground owner's past approaches him -- she thinks she knows who the woman is, and pays him to investigate. He needs the money and likes seeing the woman, so he agrees.

I only give the book 3 stars because the quality of the writing is pretty good -- but as a mystery, this book is not exactly a page-turner.