Last Rites (Paperback)

In rural 1930's Mt. Olden, Pennsylvania, most of the men are laborers who rely on the ice harvesting trade to keep bread and meat on their tables. A select elite, the sheriff, the local doctor, priest and the funeral director, oversee life in the community.Life and death are hard and generally unpleasant in the town. It is time, disease or tragedy that strikes the miners and their families. But as a good Catholic community, everyone receives their last rites when their time comes.Funeral director Oscar Ozymandias, a failed seminarian, finds opportunity as an undertaker to apply the sacramental ministry to the souls who pass across his mortuary slab. Some have already been graced with a final blessing from local priest, Paul Dollard, who Oscar finds wanting. Unlike Fr. Paul, Oscar's vestments are pristine, his Latin flawless, and his adherence to the sacraments precise. An outsider to Mt. Olden, he is generally regarded as an odd, if not upstanding member of the local community. Small towns harbor as many secrets as they do inhabitants and Mt Olden is no different. An ice-harvesting accident kills nine men, including a passing stranger. The aftermath of this tragedy sets off a series of events that unravels and exposes those secrets with the consequence of an ultimate sacrifice.