Painted Leaves — John Fink

When John Fink's first book about the Gillespies, The Leaf Boats, appeared, readers discovered that the author had created a family of such richness and depth that they wanted to know more of this Irish-American clan. This second book about the Chicago tribe focuses on television reporter Jimmy.
Jimmy has learned to live with grief after three members of his family died unnaturally. But you're never completely inured to tragedy, even when it doesn't hit directly, and the suicide (or murder?) of his coworker and former college classmate, Marlee Roberts, hits him hard.
It's a relief for him to attend a gathering of the Gillespies for an unaccustomedly happy occasion: the wedding of Jimmy's niece in Wilkes-Barre, in the coal country of eastern Pennsylvania. The last time he had been there to visit, he was instrumental in getting a local girl a job at his station. That local girl is now eagerly-and competently-stepping into the shoes of the murdered Marlee.
On an aimless walk through the streets of the town, Jimmy sees a painted leaf in the shop window of a small store. It evokes his childhood, his tragedies, and his happiness. He goes in to buy it and meets the artist: a woman who could have been important to him under other circumstances. And it is, oddly, in this drab Pennsylvania city that Jimmy is led to the secret of Marlee's death and others that followed.