Excerpt from Grendel's Guide to Love and War by A. E. Kaplan, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

I also wondered if Mrs. McArdle ought to be calling someone about, you know, the dead body, rather than serving me too-­sweet tea. I didn't say anything, though, because you really can't point out a corpse in someone else's home. It's just rude.

Anyway, I was thinking of Minnie lying up there, gone on to her final rest in her fading purple nightgown. And then, there was Minnie coming down the stairs in that selfsame purple nightgown.

Two things occurred to me at once. The first was that I was seeing a ghost. The second was that Minnie looked rather annoyed for a dead person.

All I could think to say was "Holy shit."

Minnie (who was ten years older than Allison and not nearly so modern) cut me a dirty look. "There'll be none of that kind of talk in here, mister," she snapped, which is how I knew that she was definitely not dead.

Allison came running in, or as close to running as Allison got. "Minnie!" she shouted. "You're alive!"

"Of course I'm alive, you dolt!"

"But you weren't breathing!"

Minnie stopped at the bottom of the stairs and crossed her arms. "Apparently, I was."

Allison opened her mouth to argue back, hands on her hips, when the doorbell rang.

"Tom, you get that, would you?"

I answered it; it was Troy Tucker, who graduated from my high school a few years ago. No one had predicted any particular greatness from Troy, and he'd lived up to those expectations. I stood staring at his rather ill-­fitting black suit, then I remembered that these days he worked for Green's Funeral Home.

He nodded at me. "You here to pay your respects?" he said.

"Well, uh, actually .?.?.?," I began.

"I'm here to collect the remains," he explained.

"Don't bother!" Minnie shouted from the foot of the stairs. "The remains are perfectly fine where they are, thank you!"

Troy looked to me in confusion. "I don't entirely under­stand."

"The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated!" Minnie hollered.

He shifted from one foot to another. "I don't .?.?. um .?.?."

Allison threw her arms in the air. "She's not dead, you idiot!"

Minnie snorted. "Careful where you throw that label, Allie. Remember who thought I'd gone to the great beyond in the first place!"

"You were dead! I swear it!"

"I was not dead!"

Troy crossed his arms over his chest. "But I came all this way," he said, looking from one of them to the other, as if to say he wasn't leaving empty-­handed.

Minnie shuffled forward and shooed Troy back toward the door. "There is nobody dead here. So you can go about your business. I'm terribly sorry for your trouble."

"But I put on my suit! I used six dollars' worth of gas!"

I could tell this had the potential to go on for a while, so I edged my way out the front door. Just as I closed it behind me, I heard Troy call out, "You already called Thompson and Frith, didn't you? They stole half our bodies last month!"

Thompson and Frith is the name of the funeral parlor on the other side of town. Masonberg really isn't big enough to warrant two funeral homes, but that's how many old people we have.

I was pushing my lawn mower back to the garage when I heard Troy slam the door and peel off in Mr. Green's twenty-­year-­old hearse.

Two weeks later, Minnie and Allison moved into an assisted-­living facility way down in Key West, I suppose so they could have their vitals measured by actual professionals while lying on chaise lounges and drinking Hemingway daiquiris. The following weekend, Ellen Rothgar, Allison's niece, moved in with her two kids, Rex and Willow.

I had no idea I would miss stepping in cat shit so desperately. (End parentheses.)

Excerpted from Grendel's Guide to Love and War by A. E. Kaplan. Copyright © 2017 by A. E. Kaplan. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.