Cool! Lets try it as a joint effort. Thank you :)
Young adult, dystopian science fiction. (A collegue of mine said 'Like Miss Marple meets The Hunger Games')
It's set in an alternative 1920s, in a city devastated by a deadly virus. To prevent the virus spreading and to deal with the consequences, the government has set up an authoritarian system of incinerating bodies, quarantining families, and rationing food.
Seventeen-year-old Lucille Harker has come to the city after the deaths of her mother and brothers, the failure of the family farm, and her father's suicide. She takes a job with the Medical Patrol, picking up the corpses, and she's proud to see this as a way of fighting against the virus. She's tactless, honest and loyal, but refuses to forgive her father for his suicide. She's also drowing in debts from the failed farm, that she feels honour-bound to pay back.
One night, Lucille and her colleague and mentor, Hank, go to pick up the body of the Mayor's late mistress, who has died of the virus. When they arrive, Lucille discovers that the dead woman is missing, but another body is lying in her place - a woman who's been shot through the head. Lucille is desperate to do everything openly and by the book, as much as she can in this situation, but everyone else (except Hank) is intent on a cover up.
The Mayor's office of Hygiene Control begin nosing round Lucille, trying to bribe her to forget the scandal..
Hank starts making cryptic comments and then disappears. Lucille is determined to find out where he's got to, and searches all over town, visiting including a freak show, a shyster preacher, a doctor on the search for the vaccine for the virus, and a jazz club. And then she gets arrested herself, and discovers that she didn't know half of what the Mayor was up to...