Death and Douglas by J.W. Ocker, 2017

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Douglas has grown up around the business of death. Generations of his family have run the Mortimer Family Funeral Home. The mortician and gravediggers are all his buddies. And the display room of caskets is an awesome place for hide and seek. It’s business as usual in Douglas’s small New England town. Until one day an incredibly out of the ordinary murder victim is brought to the funeral home. And more startling: others follow. On the cusp of Halloween, a serial killer has arrived. And unsatisfied with the small-town investigation, Douglas enlists his friends to help him solve the mystery. With sumptuous descriptions of a bucolic town and it’s quirky people, fascinating yet middle grade–appropriate insider information about the funeral process, and a crackling mystery with a heart-pounding conclusion―Death and Douglas has something for readers young and old.

(372 pages)

What a perfect book book this would have been to read right before Halloween! It's spooky and scary, with a serial killer on the loose and a main character who spends his life surrounded by death, but never so gruesome that it would be unpleasant to read.

It's perfect for middle school, really–though I liked it too, and I'm definitely not in that demographic anymore. I thought Ocker took a really interesting angle on spooky stories, telling a tale that was no less believable than an episode of NCIS or Monk or [insert your favorite crime show here]. Douglas is very comfortable with death, the sort of death that happens by accident or through aging. He knows and accepts that it is natural and inevitable, and he has a very intimate understanding of the process that occurs–from home removal to embalming to funeral ceremony to burial–because he has grown up as a part of the funeral business. When he discovers a serial killer is on the loose, though, it's fascinating not only to watch him and his friends do their best to solve the mystery but also to watch him grapple to equate his peaceful understanding of death with the horrible, unnatural, untimely death that occurs when there is a murder.

I think this is an important issue to think about, especially in a culture such as ours that is so inundated with books and movies and TV shows that revolve around solving murders. I love Agatha Christie's stories, for example, but none of her characters ever quite grapple with the horribleness of murder in quite the same way Douglas does. I think that's a big advantage of having a kid narrate, and I think it's also part of what makes the book both accessible for younger kids and also possibly a bit too much for them.

After all, dealing with the finality and purpose of death is pretty heady stuff for a kid's book. It manages to do a good job, I think, even without bringing in any sort of discussion of an afterlife. And the characters, both major and minor, are just so well-done that the entire book is a joy to read. It's also surprisingly hilarious for a book that literally has the word "Death" in its title.

Basically, if you want to read it, then do. I highly recommend it. But if you (or the kid you're thinking about) might not feel ready, then set it aside for now. Either way, think about saving it to read on some dark nights in October leading up to Halloween–that's definitely the best time of year for it!

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of this novel from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.