Barry Clayton has a job he doesn’t want. When his father is stricken with Alzheimer’s, Barry leaves the Charlotte police force for the small mountain community of Gainesboro, North Carolina, where his family runs the local funeral home. “Buryin’ Barry” reluctantly assumes the mantle of town undertaker, trying to fit his life into this somber profession.

Almost at once it turns deadly. At the graveside service for an elderly woman, a grieving grandson strides in like Clint Eastwood in a duster, rips out a shotgun, and murders his family. Then the shooter turns the weapon on Barry. “Take a message to my grandmother,” Dallas Willard shouts. “Tell her they tried to take the land. Tell her I love her.” The blast hits Barry in the shoulder.

Barry is not cut from the same black cloth as his father, and his irreverent wit and independence have already won him the friendship of the county sheriff, Vietnam War hero Tommy Lee Wadkins. Besides, Barry’s a police pro. Though his wounds are in the hands of local surgeon Susan Miller, Barry begins search for both the killer and the reason for his crime. It isn’t long before a second shooting occurs—but Dallas Willard’s body is then discovered at the bottom of a quarry pond, indisputable evidence that someone else committed the second crime, someone who now has his sights set on Barry....

Reviews

"Even though it’s cost him his wife and his job on the Charlotte police force, you’d think Barry Clayton’s reluctant return home to Gainesboro to take over the family funeral parlor from his Alzheimers-stricken father would at least give him a little peace of mind. Not exactly, Barry finds when Matriarch Martha Willard’s obsequies are interrupted by her grandson Dallas, who shouts, "Tell Grandma I’ll save the land," before emptying his shotgun into his brother Lee, his sister Norma Jean, and Barry himself, chalking up two fatalities and one thoroughly dismayed mortician. Before any of the even more heavily burdened mourners can stop him, Dallas skedaddles, vanishing into the North Carolina hills he’s known since he was a child. Attempting to track him, Sheriff Tommy Lee Wadkins, accompanied of course by the wounded Barry, is too late to stem a growing list of casualties, from snakebite victim Jimmy Coleman (eight) to sometime casketmaker Travis (Fats) McCauley. The work of a paranoid schizophrenic, Tommy Lee sorrowfully tells his friend, unaware that Dallas is already dead, sunk beneath a quarry pond with several barrels of chemical waste whose disposal would be a crime all by itself even if they weren’t accompanied by a corpse. Just what does this rash of homicides have to do with Martha Willard’s last will and testament and Ridgemont Power & Electric’s designs on the Pisgah Paper Mill land parcel? The scam in de Castrique’s debut is complex, the pace uncertain, the characters flat but plentiful, the regional background sensitive and savory."

--Kirkus Reviews

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"I really enjoyed this book. Mark de Castrique writes with an authentic insider's voice. He clearly knows and loves these mountains and he respects the people who live there." --Margaret Maron

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"Gainesboro, North Carolina is a small Appalachian Mountain town and home to Barry Clayton for much of his life. He escaped briefly to become a police officer in Charlotte while taking college courses in criminal justice so he could get a job in the FBI. Unfortunately, Barry couldn't see his dreams come to fruition because he returned home to take over the family funeral home. His father couldn't run it anymore because the Alzheimer's had progressed too far. At the Martha Willard funeral only two grandchildren Norma Jean and Lee attend the church service. Her other grandchild Dallas fails to arrive. At the graveside, Dallas kills Lee and Norma Jean and wounds Barry before he disappears. The sheriff figures that Dallas killed his siblings because they were going to sell the land that was promised to him. When another person, who wanted to talk to Barry, is murdered using Dallas's gun, the funeral director joins forces with the sheriff to find what is going on in the once quiet town. Mark de Castrique's debut novel is an excellent regional mystery. The tale is filled with local color, numerous villains with different agendas and a hero that is a genuinely sharp person who plays an integral role in solving the murders and other assorted crimes. The protagonist also comes to understand as "Buryin Barry" he plays a vital role in the small rural mountain town and makes peace with his lost dreams. DANGEROUS UNDERTAKING is a must read for those fans who want to learn about a mountain culture inside a strong mystery."

--Midwest Book Review

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“Ably following in the footsteps of Margaret Maron, TV and film producer de Castrique sets his first novel among the folk who populate Gainesboro, N.C., and the surrounding hill country. The book opens with a powerful bang: mentally unbalanced Dallas Willard appears at the burial service for his grandmother, Martha Willard, shoots two relatives to death, then turns his shotgun on undertaker (and former Charlotte policeman) Barry Clayton, whom he wings in the shoulder. Dallas’s motive? To preserve land worth $3 million that other members of his family planned to sell right away. Why shoot the undertaker, though? Because Dallas wants Barry to go to heaven and tell Martha nobody is going to take her property! Dallas escapes in his pickup, but when his body turns up at the bottom of a quarry pond after a second shooting incident, Barry realizes he himself could become the unknown killer’s next victim. The author sensitively depicts the hill people, including Barry's childish and fearful father, owner of the mortuary, who's losing his battle with Alzheimer’s. Fortunately, Barry has gorgeous Dr. Susan Miller to love him and sew him up when he’s injured. Adept at both the grizzly and the graceful, de Castrique has produced a

marvelous mystery you won't want to put down.” –-Publishers Weekly

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"Morticians are hot, both in print and on screen. First there was Tim Cockey's offbeat crime series starring Baltimore mortician Hitchcock Sewell, and then there was the hit HBO series Six Feet Under. Now we have another family-run funeral parlor with its resident amateur sleuth. 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 latest case, searching for fugitive Dallas Willard, touches Barry in a very personal way: Dallas shot and wounded him while murdering two others during the funeral of Grandmother Willard. As they seek a motive for the shooting spree. Barry and Tommy Lee uncover a mountain feud turned lethal. A well-written debut featuring an engaging buddy team and a picturesque setting." -Booklist

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"If you're looking for a fast-paced story told with an original voice, pick up "Dangerous Undertaking." Poisoned Pen Press has done it again--Mark de Castrique is a new talent with rocket power." --Carolyn Haines

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“At Martha Willard’s funeral, her grandson Dallas Willard shows up at the graveside, pulls out a shotgun, and kills his brother and sister. He then turns the gun on Funeral Director Barry Clayton, wounding him. Clayton, a former Charlotte, North Carolina, policeman, has recently returned to the small town in the mountains where he grew up to replace his father, suffering from Alzheimer's, in the family’s funeral business.

Despite Sheriff Tommy Lee Wadkin's intensive search, Dallas remains at large; though his empty truck shows up a week later. Continued searching fails to find him. In the meantime another body, that of Tate McCauley, is found, apparently also killed by Dallas.

As things get more complicated in the investigation, poison is discovered in a stream running from Hope Quarry, an abandoned working. As the EPA looks for the source, the body of Dallas Willard is discovered in the quarry. And the autopsy shows that he had been dead at least three days before McCauley was killed, leaving an unknown killer still at large.

The frightening but enthralling climax is satisfying as the killer is forced out into the open in the process of repeating his murderous attacks. A twist in the tail provides a stunning ending.

This book has an absorbing plot that is well presented and an interesting setting with unusual characters. This is an area with which I am very familiar, and it aptly depicts the way of life of the mountain people and their love of the land.

The murders unfold against a background that examines some of the broader issues of competing cultural and developmental pressures in an area long invisible to the outside world.

This is an excellent debut novel. Perhaps because the author has previously produced film and television shows, he knows how to keep the plot moving and the tension high. Highly recommended.” –I Love a Mystery