Definitely Dead

Definitely Dead is a novel by Charlaine Harris, published in 2006 and one of the stories about Sookie Stackhouse, a Louisiana cocktail waitress with telepathic abilities.

Sookie has very few living relatives, and the cousin she loses is Hadley. Hadley had been the consort of the Vampire Queen of New Orleans, which means she was already dead in the technical sense before she died again.

As the unexpected heir to Hadley's estate, Sookie discovers that the inheritance comes with a risk attached. Somebody does not want her looking too deeply into Hadley's past, or into Hadley's possessions. The estate is more than a house and its contents, because Hadley had ties to people who do not want them examined, and settling her cousin's affairs means going into her cousin's life.

The novel is a mystery built on the fact that Sookie's ability to read minds is of no use when the person she needs to investigate is already dead, and it is the book in which she tries to settle her cousin's affairs.