Thanks to Ecco Books for the free copy of this book. 

Billie hasn't returned to her childhood home in Mississippi since her father died unexpectedly when she was a child. When her mother dies, she inherits the house, and returns to sort things out. As she visits old neighbors, she starts piecing together what happened the day her father died, and begins to wonder if his death really was an accident after all. 

THE GONE DEAD is part murder mystery, part southern fiction, part reckoning with small town, racist history. I was immediately drawn to Billie - she's a bit hotheaded and very determined and I found myself physically gripping the edges of the book with how much I wanted her to find her answers. 

This book shares some similarities with THE REVISIONERS in terms of wrestling with how rural southern Black families might find themselves still emotionally and financially entangled with the white families they used to be enslaved by and/or later work for. 

This book is told from many viewpoints (eight, if I counted right) and each point of view character has a fully unique voice. There was never any uncertainty to who we were with at any given moment, which is quite refreshing these days when so many books do multiple points of view poorly.