Revival

In rural central Wisconsin, the dead come back to life for one day. They do not return as monsters. The revivers look, sound and act exactly as they did before they died, and they keep walking around town, which makes their return harder to explain than any shambling horde.

The story is a small-town police procedural built on a supernatural premise. Officer Dana Cypress has to hold her town together while reporters crowd in, the government imposes a quarantine, and religious zealots insist the revival is a sign.

Dana is also investigating a brutal murder, and the case keeps circling back to her own revived sister, Em. Nobody in town, living or revived, is above suspicion, and Em is no exception.

The returned dead give the book a way into grief and faith. Beneath the investigation sits a harder question: what people will do to protect family they thought they had lost for good.