Product Description

In a small-town cemetery, some secrets just won't stay buried....

Mother Lavinia Grey shouldn't talk to strangers. Especially ones she meets in a graveyard. But teenager Shannon Smith and her father, Mark, were the sort of lost sheep a kindhearted Episcopal priest couldn't resist. When Mother Vinnie found them shivering in Fishersville's Catholic cemetery, they were carrying around a box of ashes. And their reason seemed terribly romantic. They hoped to reunite Mark's recently deceased mother with the husband she lost forty years before.

Mother Vinnie kindly offered to help find the grave of Mark's father. She never dreamed they might be opening a sepulcher filled with buried secrets and shattered dreams. Or that disturbing the dead, even by asking a few curious questions, might bring to life a killer's fears. And seal Mother Vinnie's own unexpected fate....

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1606968 in Books
• Published on: 1999-05-11
• Released on: 1999-05-11
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 256 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Mother Lavinia Grey, Gallison's Episcopal priest sleuth, makes her fifth appearance (after Hasty Retreat, 1997) in this quirky, entertaining story. Mark Smith, with his grown daughter Shannon, has returned to Fishersville, N.J., to place his mother's ashes with his father's remains. There's a problem: no one knows where his father, James Smith, is buried. Turning to Mother Vinnie for help, the Smiths discover that there is a mystery about the elder Smith's death, one that coincides with a devastating flood that hit Fishersville in 1955. While trying to help out Mark and Shannon, Mother Vinnie witnesses the vandalization of a local cemetery and is led to wonder if there's a connection between a local gang's stealing of statuary and monuments from cemeteries and the puzzling whereabouts of James Smith. When an elderly town resident is murdered and suspicion points at Mark, Mother Vinnie and Shannon must redouble their efforts to solve the mystery of Mark's missing father. The over-the-top ending, in which Mother Vinnie stupidly lets herself be put in mortal danger, weakens an otherwise amusing story that features a distinctive and usually appealing heroine.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
"A quirky, entertaining story."
--Publisher's Weekly -- Review

Review
"A quirky, entertaining story."
--Publisher's Weekly

Customer Reviews

Kept me up until 3:00am.
I can't believe LGandle read the same warm and witty book I did. Of course I am a fan of Mother Lavinia Grey and have read all Kate Gallison's books. Mother Grey and her wacky assortment of parishoners are always a hoot. The uproariously odd coincidences and dizzying plot twists of Grave Misgivings kept me up until 3:00am.

A former resident returns to Fisherville
Mother Lavinia meets a man and his teenage daughter in the rain in a cemetery. She kindheartedly asks them home with her and they tell her they are looking for the grave of the man's father. He died in the great flood of 1955, or did he? Someone is also stealing the ornaments from the graveyard. Mother Lavinia takes both mysteries in hand.

While this isn't my favorite of the Mother Vinnie mysteries, it is still very entertaining. The mysteries of the past and present blend very well together, and the ending is somewhat surprising.

I Miss Mother Lavinia!
I wish Kate Gallison would hurry up and write another Mother Lavinia Grey mystery. The premise for her novels is so different...and wonderfully done.!