A necromancer fights to protect the living from the dead in this novel that's "sure to delight lovers of gritty urban fantasy" (Publishers Weekly).   In the Canadian city of Winnipeg, every mortician is on the take and every revenant of myth waits to claw their way out of their tombs. The dead stay in the ground because of Winter Murray, a necromancer of the Compact. A victim of abduction and a criminal herself, Winter stalks Winnipeg's Graveside, preventing larger, more heinous crimes from spilling over into the lives of the Sunsiders, no matter what laws of gods and men she must break to do so.   Winter is a chimera, sharing the genetic material of her own never-born fraternal twin sister. Her dead twin's essence provides her a link to the Kingdom--the land of the dead--and a tie to a past she's run from for thirteen years. Winter struggles to find a redemption she doesn't believe she deserves. The temptation of dirty deeds is everywhere: An animated skeleton with a penchant for wearing dead men's clothes wants her on his payroll. Her deceased-but-not-gone mentor still pushes her to take the easy way by being hard. A composite man assembled from soldiers still puts boot to ass when Winter demands. A vampire wants just a taste. Each pulls at Winter, ensuring a normal life remains eternally out of reach, and the easy way is anything but.   From the Aurora Award nominated author of the Thunder Road Trilogy, "this series launch should appeal to fans of the hard-boiled fantasy novels of Richard Kadrey and Simon R. Green" (Publishers Weekly).