THE WEIGHT OF THE DEAD: A Nate Briggs Mystery (The Nate Briggs Mysteries)

A sealed coffin. A century-old skeleton. A child who died only months ago. When a violent storm uncovers a historic cemetery in the Green Mountains of Vermont, the discovery seems destined to become just another chapter in Parker’s Gore’s troubled history. Then local physician Doc Denton opens a sealed nineteenth-century coffin and finds something impossible. Curled in the arms of a young woman buried more than a hundred years ago is the body of a little girl. Game warden and part-time constable Nate Briggs is called to investigate a mystery that defies explanation. No child has been reported missing. No one can explain how she came to rest inside a coffin that had not been opened in generations. And every answer only deepens the questions. As Nate follows a trail through old bloodlines and the guarded customs of an isolated mountain town, he discovers that the truth is far more disturbing than anyone imagined. Because whoever placed the little girl inside that coffin was not concealing a crime. They were telling a story. Steeped in Vermont landscape and lore, The Weight of the Dead is a literary mystery about obsession and the burden of believing the past can be made whole.