Really Dead? is the first in new series, the Cindy and Wally Mysteries.
Retired widower Sam Burke is shopping in Target when a woman approaches him and greets him like a long lost friend. Sam thinks she looks familiar, but he can’t place her. Later Sam remembers where he last saw the woman—in her casket years ago.
Meanwhile Sam’s granddaughter Katie is having an affair with Jason, a mild-mannered young man who is separated from his wife Lissa. Lissa disappears one day, leaving her house in a strange cluttered state, and her son with her sister. The police think Jason is an abuser and did away with Lissa, but there is no body, and no real evidence for what happened to her.
Two women, many years apart, unconnected, who are supposed to be dead—but are they really? Sam and his other granddaughter Heather enlist the aid of amateur investigator Andy Wade to help them find out. Soon it becomes clear that in each case, a death is more likely to come in the future than it was in the past. It is up to Sam’s prescient cat Cindy and Wally, Andy’s sociable labradoodle, to keep the humans in line as they track down potential murderers.
Mary S. Frederick 