Dastardly Deeds--and Redemption--in a Small Town... (Thriller REVIEW)

It’s a good thing that folks in the marketing biz know a little something about “selling it”, because if there’s one thing less likely to elicit enthusiasm from me than the prospect of reading a thriller about marketing, it’d be reading a thriller about a funeral home… both of which, it just so happens, form the basis of marketing pro Joe Pulizzi’s first unputdownable outing as a novelist, The Will to Die.

(In case you missed it, let’s pause here for a dramatic moment whilst I reiterate: unputdownable. Like, really, truly.) 

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On paper, Will Pollitt may be a big-city (well, Cleveland, Ohio, so biggish, anyway) marketing whiz, but the reality of his life is anything but rosy. Still sore over a messy divorce from the love of his life, Will desperately needs to land a new deal in order to save his tiny firm and continue sending his daughter to university… so that his ex-wife or daughter never find out how close to bankruptcy he actually is.

When Will’s sister calls—in the middle of an all-important pitch meeting he and his partner are in, with a hot new soda company—and tells him their father, Abe, has just died, it’s the last thing Will is prepared to hear. Actually, make that the second-to-last thing… because the first thing she tells him when he arrives at their family-owned funeral home in Sandusky (a picturesque, smaller town, for anyone not familiar with the famous home of huge, amusement-park roller coasters [and not much else]), is that she’s convinced their dad’s demise involved foul play. 

Will doesn’t want to believe it—who would want to, after all?—yet promises her that he’ll stick around for a few days, helping not only with the funeral preparations but also looking into things.

Once the will is read, naming Will the sole inheritor of Pollitt Funeral Home, Will gets another surprise: Abe’s instructions say that he wants Will to either sell the funeral parlor outright, or to keep it… and stay in Sandusky to run it, himself, for at least one year.

With the prospect of finally being able to get out from under the mountain of debt he’s amassed, by selling the home to a rival funeral business that’s more than eager to obtain it, Will is torn. Should he take the easy path, and get on with his life… or should he do what his gut says is the right thing, and stick around, trying to see if he can get the recently-floundering family business back on track… as a way to honor his dad, and his dad’s legacy.

A chance discovery—during a frantic change of burial clothing (yep, as in, playing dress-up with a corpse) just minutes prior to his dad’s funeral service—has Will thinking maybe there’s something to his sister’s suspicions, after all… which makes his decision a little easier. 

It’s deciphering the little clues left behind, finding the answers—and trying not to die, himself, in the process—that’ll be the real challenge.

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If you’re thinking this sounds a tad off-putting—“corpses? eww!”—I’ll ask that you take my word for it, here: it isn’t, at all. (I mean, as long as you’ve come to terms with the fact that every living thing dies, eventually, then you can handle this book.) It’s an extremely well-written suspense tale, with a surprising sense of humor… that just happens to revolve around a funeral home.

There’s also a wonderful sense of place; as a former Midwesterner (and someone who knows more than she cares to forget about much-smaller towns than depicted in this book), I can affirm that Pulizzi has nailed the area, and the people.

Honestly, there’s so much to love about The Will to Die. You wanna pick up interesting little details about businesses you probably don’t know much about (marketing and the funeral business)? They’re here. Keen to follow some fascinating—and absolutely believably-flawed—characters? Check. Have a hankering for unusual heroes? Absolutely. Just craving a really good yarn that’ll keep you reading on into the wee hours? This book.

As for me, well… I’ll be anxiously awaiting the sequel. (Hint, hint, Mr. Pulizzi. :)
~GlamKitty