On the last morning of Virginia's bloodiest year since the Civil War, I built a fire and sat facing a window of darkness where at sunrise I knew I would find the sea.

When I was at college there were two things I vowed I'd never do. One was go to a funeral and the other was deal with computers. And then I ended up being a computer programmer in a morgue.

Has all the trappings of a mystery novel, doesn't it?

In the first person, the readers feel smart, like it's them solving the case.

He was pushing fifty, with a face life had chewed on, and long wisps of graying hair parted low on one side and combed over his balding pate.

The dead have never bothered me. It's the living that I fear.

I find it difficult to attend autopsies. Especially the smells.