Towns like Gainesboro, North Carolina, may be small, but they go big when it comes to local traditions. When funeral director and part-time deputy sheriff Barry Clayton and his childhood nemesis, Archie Donovan Jr., unite to create a fundraising float in Gainesboro's annual Apple Festival Parade, what could go wrong? With Archie involved -- anything!

Barry is preparing for the funeral of Vietnamese Y'Grok Eban. Y'Grok was part of the Montagnards, a fiercely loyal resistance group who helped save the lives of countless Americans during the Vietnam War--including that of Gainesboro sheriff Tommy Lee Wadkins. When someone attacks Barry and steals Y'Grok's body, the likable undertaker has more than embarrassment to worry about: several Montagnards are in town for the funeral and suspect a political...

With his father in the grip of Alzheimer's, Charlotte, N.C., cop Barry Clayton has quit his job and returned to his hometown, a small mountain village near Asheville, to help his mother and his Uncle Wayne run the funeral business. Local police chief Tommy Lee Wadkins, recognizing that Barry regrets leaving the police, finds ways to involve the reluctant mortician in his investigations. Their search for fugitive Dallas Willard touches Barry in a very...

"When Cherokee burial remains are unearthed on the site of a local cemetery's expansion, Barry Clayton, part-time deputy and full-time undertaker, finds his dual occupations collide. Then, during the interment of the wife of one of Gainesboro's most prominent citizens, Cherokee activist Jimmy Panther leads a protest. Words and fists fly. When Panther turns up executed on the grave of the deceased woman, Barry is forced to confront her family as the...