Book description
The night before a funeral that will thrust the mountain town of
Gainesboro, North Carolina, into the national spotlight, the body is
stolen from the embalming room and funeral director Barry Clayton is
knocked unconscious. Ouch. How will Clayton & Clayton deal with the
relatives of Y'Grok Eban, the Montagnard hero who aided US troops during
the Vietnam War, or the U. S. Senator, three-star general, and famous
Hollywood star en route to Y'Grok's service? Barry's friend, Sheriff
Tommy Lee Wadkins has a very personal interest in the missing Y'Grok-the
Montagnard had saved his life. So does the Boston detective who also
owes his life to Y'Grok and received a death-bed summons from the
cancer-stricken old man: “Raven has come home.” The three men pledge to
crack Y'Grok's code, recover not just the body but a piece of a
long-buried past, and deal with new death and betrayal. Is it a heroic
or a foolish undertaking? In the fictional mountain town of
Gainesboro, North Carolina, funeral director Barry Clayton is in for the
shock of his life. The night before the high-profile funeral of 'Grok
Eban, a heroic Montagnard who assisted US troops in the Vietnam War,
Barry is knocked out in the embalming room. When he comes to stolen, but
why? Does it have anything to do with the covert missions that took
place on the other side of the globe almost forty years ago? Or the
enigmatic message Y'Grok sent to war buddy and Boston cop Kevin Malone
just before he died: “Raven has come home.” The premise of Foolish
Undertaking is irresistible, the historical focus on the Montagnards is
fascinating, but most importantly, the execution of this mystery is
flawless. Following Dangerous Undertaking (2003) and Grave Undertaking
(2004), this is the third entry in Mr. de Castrique's series his best.
Foolish Undertaking succeeds on every level, from its large cast of real
and vivid characters to the steadily mounting tension and the handful of
completely unexpected plot twists. Take a trip to Gainesboro. You'll
love this original and absorbing mystery. Mark de Castrique grew up in
the mountains of western North Carolina where his mysteries are set.
Mark is a veteran of the television and film production industry, and he
serves as an adjunct professor at the University of North Carolina at
Charlotte. Dangerous Undertaking is the first in the series
