Rebekkah Barrow never forgot the tender attention her grandmother, Maylene, bestowed upon the dead of Claysville; there wasn't a funeral that Maylene didn't attend and perform the same unusual ritual: three sips from a small silver flask followed by the words "Sleep well, and stay where I put you." Now Maylene is dead and Bek must go back. But she discovers that Maylene was murdered and had good reason for her traditions. It turns out that the worlds of the living and the dead are dangerously connected. Beneath the town lies a shadowy, lawless land from which the dead will return if their graves are not properly minded. Only the Graveminder and the current Undertaker can set things to right once the dead begin to walk.