Closed Casket

I’ll admit, I picked up *Closed Casket* for the premise alone: a former biker gran and her granddaughter hiding in witness protection, *trying* to go straight. But what hooked me was how Deany Ray balances the absurd with the genuine. Piper’s voice—equal parts weary and wicked—feels like she’s confiding in you over cheap beer at a roadside dive. The mystery itself is twisty enough to satisfy thriller fans, but the real joy is the family drama: Gran’s ‘helpful’ criminal expertise clashing with Piper’s desperate bid for normalcy. (Spoiler: normalcy loses.) Jenn Lee’s narration elevates the material with a performance that’s equal parts grit and charm. Her Gran is a standout—imagine if Jessica Walter’s Lucille Bluth traded martinis for moonshine—and she makes even the most outlandish dialogue feel organic. My only critique? The pacing stumbles slightly in the middle, when a subplot about a rival gang feels more like setup for a sequel than integral to this story. And while the Florida setting is vivid, I wished for more atmospheric details—more cicadas, more mildew, more of that oppressive heat that makes people do stupid things. Still, the final act delivers a payoff so satisfying, I immediately checked if Ray had written a sequel. (She has. *Of course* she has.)