When Billy Barnes--founder of the most popular jazz band in Indian Lake, Ohio--is shot dead at a July Fourth riot, everyone in town is wary of calling it a murder. But a bit farther north of Indian Lake, one would-be gumshoe is unconvinced by the coroner's ruling of an "accidental bullet wound to the chest." An el has been Billy's guardian angel for twenty-four years--and, before he can move on to his next assignment, he has vowed to solve the mystery of his beloved ward's death.

Eulogizing Billy's life at the same time it eulogizes the 1950s, In Lieu of Flowers is a murder mystery steeped in all the magic, and all the ugliness, of the decade. Like Mitch Albom's The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto and John Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany, Charles W. Rath's In Lieu of Flowers attempts to reconcile the earthly with the ethereal, mourning humankind's excesses while marveling at its capacity for love, loyalty, and creativity.