Occupation: Obituary Writer
“Oh good, you aren’t dead,” said my friend Carla when I snatched up my cell phone to stop the eerie ringtone I downloaded last Halloween.
Peering groggily at the time, I wondered why my friend who works at the local funeral home was calling me at the ungodly hour of 6:00 a.m.
“Dead?” I asked.
“So says your obituary.”
“My obituary?”
“Geez, girl, you sound like a parrot. Your client—that 105-year-old woman we took care of was given your name in her online obituary—at least you’re the only obituary writer named Winter Snow in Ridgefield, Connecticut that I know of.” I could hear the tell-tale snap of her gum as she spoke. Carla had recently given up vaping in exchange for Double Bubble.
“Explain,” I said still trying to clear the cobwebs.
I envisioned Carla’s ghoulish black nails dancing over the keys as I heard her clicking away at her computer. “Here it is. Ridgefield Resident Winter Snow all in nice bold caps on the title line. Admittedly, they got a lot wrong. How could anyone look at this beautiful photo and think this elderly woman is only five years old? Not to mention she doesn’t look anything like a 29-year-old obit writer with Irish ancestry.”
If I was really listed in my client’s obituary, I might as well be dead—or at least my business might as well be. Who would hire me to write a tribute to their loved one after this monumental error?
“It shouldn’t take long to fix the online version unless…” More clicking and a pop from the bubble she just blew.
“Unless what?” My stomach started doing cartwheels. I put her on speaker and began searching my phone for the offending notice.
“Oh, here it is—you have one more problem,” said Carla getting there first. “It is also listed that way in Legacy.com. And oops, that’s not good.”
“What, what’s not good?” I was now sitting straight up in bed with my voice at a high enough pitch to break glass.
“Your name is mentioned throughout the body of the obit—not only in the title as I originally thought. You really do need to get this fixed ASAP—especially before it hits the print edition tomorrow,” said Carla.
Only a few months earlier I had received a lot of business boosting publicity because along with the help of my Uncle Richard, my octogenarian neighbor Horace, and my best friend and newspaper reporter Scoop, we solved two mysterious deaths. A missing memoir, incriminating photos, a ratty blue sneaker and a precocious Great Pyrenees puppy named Diva were all part of a life and death race to solve the crimes before the next obituary written turned out to be my own.
Lately, though, my obituary writing business has been in a death drought so I expanded it to include living legacies—stories written while a person is alive and vibrant. An autobiography of sorts and part of a preplanning funeral package. This obituary error is the kind of thing that could put me out of business.
“You don’t think someone did this intentionally, do you?” I asked.
I imagined her shrugging because instead of answering, she lowered her voice, Carla’s way of letting me know she was serious. “Can you come by the funeral home later? There is someone here you will want to write about.”
“Alive or dead?” I asked.
“Definitely dead. And probably murdered.”
The Last Word, A Deadly Deadlines Mystery Book #1
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Release: February 2024
Format: Print, Digital, Audio
Purchase Link
An obituary writer finds one of her neighbors dead before her time in this debut cozy mystery perfect for fans of Jenn McKinlay and Eva Gates.
Obituary writer Winter Snow is no stranger to grief, and writing obituaries for the citizens of Ridgefield, Connecticut, is her way of providing comfort to those who have been in her shoes. But funerals and eulogies are meant for the dead, so when the very much alive Leocadia Arlington requests her own obituary by the end of the week, Winter’s curiosity is piqued. Even more so when she finds Mrs. Arlington dead soon after. Officer Kip Michaels and his relentless partner Tom Bellini make it clear that Winter is under suspicion for the death.
Drafting an obituary for someone who hadn’t died yet certainly looks bad, but Winter knows that it wasn’t her, and she becomes obsessed with trying to figure out the real killer. She dives headfirst into the investigation to give Mrs. Arlington and herself some peace. When Winter realizes Mrs. Arlington was working on a revealing memoir that has now gone missing, Winter begins to wonder if the death wasn’t exactly random–accident or otherwise.
With the help of her foodie Uncle Richard, her wise octogenarian neighbor Horace, her best friend Scoop, and Diva, the Great Pyrenees puppy she inherited from Mrs. Arlington, Winter must uncover the killer before the next obituary written is her own.
About the author
Gerri Lewis is the author of the Deadly Deadlines mystery, The Last Word, about an obituary writer who solves murders in her hometown of Ridgefield, Connecticut. During her career as an award-winning reporter, columnist and feature writer, Gerri has become a go-to person in her community for obituaries. When she is not helping her protagonist solve mysteries, she writes magazine features and is the Public Information Officer for the Ridgefield Office of Emergency Management.