Murder on an Irish Farm

December 15, 2021
The much-anticipated nuptials of DS Macdara Flannery and Garda Siobh�n O'Sullivan are rudely interrupted when the best man shows up late and reports a dead body. In preparation for the blessed event, Dara's purchased an abandoned dairy farm for their new home. Not to be outdone, Siobh�n's brother, James, has discovered a skeleton in its long-disused slurry pit. The couple's new neighbors, Gladys and Benji Burns, tentatively identify the body as that of Tommy Caffrey, who vanished the morning of his planned wedding to Gladys, leaving disaster in his wake, 50 years ago to the day. Also missing at the time was 30,000 pounds that Gladys' brother Alan O'Leary and his friend Howard Dunn had planned to use to start a business. The whole family remains oddly intertwined with Benji's first wife, Rose, who works with birds of prey, and their adopted son, Joseph, now a potter, who lives nearby. All of them are less than truthful in their descriptions of past events, and Siobh�n's convinced that someone deliberately manipulated her wedding day to commemorate the anniversary of Tommy's death. When the family sneaks into the crime scene to pay their respects, they find Alan dead in the pit. The fresh corpse and the threats it betokens to the living make solving the mystery even more urgent and even more uncomfortable, since the likely suspects are all family members. Fans of charming Irish mysteries will delight in the ways this convoluted case ensnares the heroine and her supporting cast.

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January 17, 2022
O’Connor’s solid eighth Irish Village mystery (after 2020’s Murder at an Irish Christmas) finds garda Siobhán O’Sullivan and her fiancé, Det. Sgt. Macdara Flannery, about to say their “I Do’s” when Siobhán’s eldest brother bursts into the church in Kilbane, County Cork, to announce he’s discovered a skeleton in a slurry pit. The couple postpone their wedding as investigating the case soon takes priority after Siobhán’s new neighbor, Gladys Burns, realizes the body is that of Tommy Caffrey, her fiancé, who stood her up at the altar 50 years earlier. Siobhán and Macdara discover that Gladys as well as her family members had many bones to pick with the deceased ne’er-do-well. Each clue leads to more revelations from the past, and the family’s complex relationships seem to hold the key to the crime. When a second body appears, and suspects begin pointing fingers at each other, Siobhán and Macdara realize no one’s telling the truth. The quaint Irish setting and facts about falconry boost the well-paced plot, though the ending requires some willing suspension of disbelief. Cozy fans will be well satisfied. Agent: Evan Marshall, Evan Marshall Agency.