A review by shirleytupperfreeman
The Gone Dead by Chanelle Benz

At 35, Billie James is a bit at loose ends. Her white mother has died of cancer. Her black father died 30 years ago when he went back to his childhood town in the Mississippi delta. Both her parents were writers and her father was a poet of some renown. Billie has inherited her father's rundown house and a little money so she takes a week off from her life in Philly to go reconnect with her memories of Mississippi. Her presence, and her deepening questioning about her father's death, start unnerving some people who want her gone. Billie is determined to learn the truth of her father's life and death, to unpack her childhood memories and to force the 'powers that be' to confront their misdeeds. That turns out to be complicated. Once I started, I wanted to keep reading... and did.