Blaedel's grim sequel to 2018's The Undertaker's Daughter takes Ilka Jensen from Denmark to Racine, Wis., to inherit her estranged and now deceased father's failing funeral home. The last funeral held at the home is for a woman who was shot in her own house, and Ilka learns that the murder victim was blackmailing Ilka's father for 20 years. As Ilka tries to understand why her father mysteriously abandoned her over 30 years earlier, she meets a handful of his friends and enemies, including his cold ex-wife (not Ilka's mother) and his best friend, who has been accused of felony fraud. Blaedel does a fine job of fleshing out each of these characters, and readers will enjoy watching Ilka transform from frustrated and confused to utterly confident in her sleuthing as she discovers some of her father's painful secrets. Several questions remain unanswered. Nevertheless, the book's cliffhanger ending will make readers look forward to the next set of secrets for Ilka to unravel. Agent: Victoria Sanders, Victoria Sanders & Assoc. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Two months ago, Ilka Jensen (introduced in The Daughter, 2018) left Denmark to sell the Racine, Wisconsin, funeral home that her estranged father inexplicably bequeathed to her. It turns out, however, that Jensen Funeral Home is buried in debt and prepaid service obligations while casket suppliers and crematoriums have blacklisted them. The only thing Ilka is getting out of the fiasco is the opportunity to get to know her father through the things he left behind; but when she finds a stack of blackmail letters, even that sours. No one seems to know who Maggie, who authored the letters, is, but the pieces come together when Ilka learns that the husband of their recent morgue pickup, gunshot victim Margaret Graham, had an affair with Ilka's stepmother. Could that secret have caused her death? And who is trailing Ilka around Racine as she probes her father's involvement in a racehorse-stable scandal? Not as dark as Blaedel's popular Louise Rick procedurals, this well-crafted dive into family secrets will appeal to fans of Lisa Scottoline.--Christine Tran Copyright 2019 Booklist