“We were both 10. But he was dead. And I sat drawing him.” Em Walker is just like any other 10-year-old girl growing up in the small, outback town of Hope. That is, except for the fact that her Dad runs one of the town's two funeral parlours, and the dead have just started speaking to her... When Hope is rocked by a terrible crime, Em, stubborn, scared of spiders, and with a temper that's likely to get her into trouble, will find herself thrust into the middle of a dangerous hunt for the truth. “Being scared’s good,” Grandpa Walker had told me once. “Stops us from doing stupid things.” It hadn’t stopped me.