What is envisioned as the best Christmas ever, turns out to be the worst Christmas imaginable when Young Nevada Minnesota loses his adored Grandpa Daddy two days before Christmas.
Digging Up Daddy follows Young Nevada as he struggles to preserve the sanctity and dignity of his grandfather's gravesite. But new cemetery manager Martin Synester has grandiose plans for both the cemetery and adjoining grounds, which if successful would create a ghoulish theme park, within a stones throw of the grave.
Enter an unscrupulous, twice-disbarred attorney Samuel Livingston who senses a huge payday by exploiting the grave and memory of Young Nevada's grandfather. The blind ambition of both Synester and Livingston are tempered by the former cemetery owners, Benjamin and Mary Mayfair, who express remorse at having sold the cemetery, and seek the aid of their parish priest, in order to provide them with a pathway to redemption.
Young Nevada battles his father for his perceived slight at Grandpa Daddy's memory. Yet, Young Nevada is forced to confront his father's secret, unsettling past. Ultimately, Young Nevada wishes that some facts about his grandfather had remained buried. With the aid of his neighbor, and a friend, Young Nevada grapples with whether his grandfather is deserving of the praise bestowed upon him.
Digging Up Daddy is a coming of age novel for all ages that explores, love, sin, faith, and redemption.