After all, what could be more perfect that an amateur sleuth surrounded by dead people? And if she just so happened to be able and see and talk to some of them, all the better! I didn’t get the job, by the way, but as I drove home from the interview, I did get the idea for Pepper Martin, a cemetery tour guide whose enthusiasm for cemeteries does not rival my own.

Is it any wonder that a writer’s imagination is bound to take flight in a cemetery? Still others speak of undying love and precious memories. One memorial can give you a glimpse into generations of a family’s history. There are stories, too, everywhere you look. Take a peek into any cemetery that’s more than sixty or so years old and you’re bound to see interesting architecture, sculpture and art.

A cemetery-I mean a really good old cemetery, not these new “memorial parks” where every headstone is flat to the ground and every one of them looks the same-is really a museum without walls. Why? Well, aside from the fact that the job would force me to step away from my computer and remind me that there was a life beyond writing (even in a place where just about everybody was dead), I love cemeteries. A pseudonym used by Connie Laux, A.K.A Miranda Bliss, Zoe Daniels, Connie Deka, Mimi Granger, Anastasia Hastings, Connie Laux, Constance Laux, Kylie Logan, Lucy Ness.Ī couple years ago I applied for a part-time job as a tour guide at a historic cemetery not far from where I live.

Don of the Dead by Casey Daniels