PLEASANT SURPRISES

A woman unearths a secret that sheds light on her boss’s disconcerting history in this debut novel.

It’s 1962, and Violet Romero works and lives at a Lexington, Kentucky, funeral home, once an antebellum mansion. Whatever she left behind in California four months earlier may explain her misery, as she contemplates ending her life. But Violet has grown fond of her job as well as Henry Pendleton, the patient and kind mortician who hired her. Still, she has good reason to suspect Henry is hiding something, and she can’t help but wonder what it is. What she discovers in a “secret room” at the funeral home gives her some answers, though not in a way she could have ever predicted. Henry’s dark, startling past may have connections to subplots concurrently unfolding, from a United States captive during the Mexican-American War to a supposed killer on the lam in the mid-19th century. Unspeakable violence from back then somehow reaches Violet’s present day, and things quickly escalate as she finds herself against a terrifying force. Moor’s deliberately paced but engaging drama about Violet’s affecting loneliness smoothly transitions into a cross-genre novel with shades of horror and the supernatural. The rich characterization shows the human side of some notably otherworldly occurrences later in the gripping tale. Chapters trade off narrative perspectives and time periods, ranging from the early 1800s to the 1930s, periodically introducing new characters whose ties to the main plot aren’t immediately apparent. But this does deepen an absorbing mystery, and the nonlinear approach is easy to follow, especially with Violet anchoring the book. Moor’s sublime writing tones down the handful of graphic moments and stylizes gleefully creepy turns featuring various players: “The wooden steps creaked noisily as he navigated into the darkness, where a cold, metallic odor hung in the air.” The story ends with resolutions aplenty and a hint of more to come.

The lives of stellar characters gradually intersect in this grim, riveting tale.