The Obituary Writer of Cedar Falls
A Novel

About this book:

In the fog-shrouded town of Cedar Falls, obituary writer Nora Vance knows that every life fits between two dates and a dash—but some dashes hide secrets worth killing for. When a handwritten obituary arrives for Arthur Finch, a disgraced heir who vanished twenty-five years ago after the collapse of the town's savings and trust, Nora recognizes the name: it's her own middle name, her grandmother's maiden name, the family that built the mansions on Prospect Hill and the mill that burned with them. The notice claims Arthur died today. It directs her to the old mill's intake pipe, where a circle of cold ash, a charred ledger, and a brass key wait like a final edition going to press.

Dragged into a mystery that predates her birth, Nora trades her desk for the river bottomlands, where founding families buried more than timber money. The ledger's coded entries trace a path from the 1988 fire through decades of quiet corruption, and every thread leads back to the people who raise her coffee, edit her copy, and attend the same funerals she writes. With the *Gazette* shrinking, her aunt's memory fading, and a managing editor who'd rather retire than investigate, Nora has only her reporter's instincts and a stubborn refusal to let the dead stay silent.

Atmospheric and sharp-edged, *The Obituary Writer of Cedar Falls* is a literary mystery about the stories towns tell themselves—and the ones they bury. For readers who love Tana French's sense of place, Louise Penny's village secrets, and the quiet thrill of a woman who knows that the dash between the dates is where the truth lives.