When Curtis Brooks starts receiving phone calls from his older brother Wilt, who’s been dead for a week, he’s sure there’s a reason—to provide the necessary evidence that will lead to the murderer’s arrest.

A plausible assumption, considering the circumstances.

But Wilt claims he wasn’t murdered, that his calling is part of the therapy required for the newly deceased. Where is he? A place known unofficially as the Aftermart.

“Imagine the biggest Walmart you’ve ever been in, except you can’t find an exit,” Wilt says, “and all the stuff on the shelves is junk you’ve only heard about either from Mom and Dad or from people even more ancient. Black and white TVs with rotary dials that were around when our supposedly wise elders were kids or even earlier. Eight-track tapes, board games.”

“So you’re saying . . . ?”

“Products they don’t make anymore. Dead stuff.”

After detectives rule Wilt’s death a homicide, Curtis embarks on a dangerous plan to find the killer—a plan that soon has him scheming against an unsavory billionaire and floundering toward love with his brother’s ex-girlfriend Suzy, who might be a suspect. Meantime, he has to contend with his strangely grieving mother and narcissistic father, and with being “the dead guy’s brother” at high school.

Who killed Wilt? In sleuthing out the murderer, is Curtis only hastening his own death? And why is Wilt helping Curtis win over Suzy, even as he organizes a massive rebellion at the Aftermart?