"1468. A young priest, Christopher Fairfax, arrives in a remote Exmoor village to conduct the funeral of his predecessor. The land around is strewn with ancient artifacts--coins, fragments of glass, human bones--which the old parson used to collect. Did his obsession with the past lead to his death? Fairfax becomes determined to discover the truth. Over the course of the next six days, everything he believes--about himself, his faith, and the history...

In North Devon, where two rivers converge and run into the sea, Detective Matthew Venn stands outside the church as his estranged father's funeral takes place. When Matthew left the strict evangelical community he grew up in, he lost his family too. Now, as he turns and walks away again, he receives a call from one of his team. A body has been found on the beach nearby: a man with a tattoo of an albatross on his neck, stabbed to death. The case calls...

In the spring of 1896, after thirty years spent dispensing justice in the territory of Montana, Judge Harlan Blackthorne expires, leaving Deputy U.S. Marshal Page Murdock, his most steadfast officer, to escort his remains across the continent by rail. The long journey--interrupted from time to time by station stops for the public to pay its respects and for various marching bands to serenade the departed with his favorite ballad, "After the Ball"--gives...

Revolutionizing traditional mortuary practices, Richard Connable develops a method of preserving the human dignity of the deceased. His wife Lucy struggles to keep their marriage whole as she stands by his side and supports him while he builds a reputation and becomes the premier undertaker for the rich and powerful. But when Richard is called from retirement to discretely disguise the suicide of an important American financier, Lucy sets out on a...