Murder Most Irish

In this anthology, you'll see all the moods of Ireland on display.

In this anthology, you'll see all the moods of Ireland on display.

The Irish are deeply passionate about their kinsmen, their country, their culture, and their way of life, as this collection of mysteries so richly illustrates. Slow to anger and equally slow to forgive at times, the children of the Emerald Isle have had planty of experience on both sides of the law. The sixteen stories of Irish crime and mystery in this volume tell of good and bad men and women--heroes and villians both. All feature characters for whom being Irish is more than just a state of mind--it's a way of life.

Murder has a way of killing business... In the small village of Kilbane, County Cork in Ireland, Naomi’s Bistro has always been warm and welcoming. Nowadays, twenty-two-year-old Siobhán O’Sullivan runs the family bistro named for her mother, along with her five siblings, after the death of their parents in a car crash almost a year ago. It’s been a rough year for the O’Sullivans, but it’s about to get rougher. One morning, as they’re opening the bistro, they discover a man seated at a table with a pair of hot pink barber scissors protruding from his chest. With the local garda suspecting the O’Sullivans, and their business in danger of being shunned, it’s up to Siobhán to solve the crime and save her beloved brood. A charming Irish village mystery, perfect for fans of Betty Rowlands and Dee Macdonald.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Soon to be an FX limited series streaming on HULU • From the author of Empire of Pain—a stunning, intricate narrative about a notorious killing in Northern Ireland and its devastating repercussions. "Masked intruders dragged Jean McConville, a 38-year-old widow and mother of 10, from her Belfast home in 1972. In this meticulously reported book—as finely paced as a novel—Keefe uses McConville's murder as a prism to tell the history of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Interviewing people on both sides of the conflict, he transforms the tragic damage and waste of the era into a searing, utterly gripping saga." —New York Times Book Review Jean McConville's abduction was one of the most notorious episodes of the vicious conflict known as The Troubles. Everyone in the neighborhood knew the I.R.A. was responsible. But in a climate of fear and paranoia, no one would speak of it. In 2003, five years after an accord brought an uneasy peace to Northern Ireland, a set of human bones was discovered on a beach. McConville's children knew it was their mother when they were told a blue safety pin was attached to the dress--with so many kids, she had always kept it handy for diapers or ripped clothes. Patrick Radden Keefe's mesmerizing book on the bitter conflict in Northern Ireland and its aftermath uses the McConville case as a starting point for the tale of a society wracked by a violent guerrilla war, a war whose consequences have never been reckoned with. The brutal violence seared not only people like the McConville children, but also I.R.A. members embittered by a peace that fell far short of the goal of a united Ireland, and left them wondering whether the killings they committed were not justified acts of war, but simple murders. From radical and impetuous I.R.A. terrorists such as Dolours Price, who, when she was barely out of her teens, was already planting bombs in London and targeting informers for execution, to the ferocious I.R.A. mastermind known as The Dark, to the spy games and dirty schemes of the British Army, to Gerry Adams, who negotiated the peace but betrayed his hardcore comrades by denying his I.R.A. past--Say Nothing conjures a world of passion, betrayal, vengeance, and anguish.

In this enchanting new read in the fan-favorite series from a USA Today bestselling author, garda of County Cork, Ireland, Siobhán O’Sullivan and Macdaras Flannery, are about to get married at last. But just as the rowdy O’Sullivan brood and all the regulars of the local bistro have gathered at the church, the nuptials come to an abrupt halt when the discovery of an unidentified skeleton puts the wedding on pause… If only her mother could be here! The entire O’Sullivan brood—not to mention the regulars from Naomi’s Bistro—have gathered at St. Mary’s Church for the wedding of Siobhán and Macdara. It’s not every day you see two garda marrying each other. Only Siobhán’s brother James is missing. They can’t start without him. But when James finally comes racing in, he’s covered in dirt and babbling he’s found a human skeleton in the old slurry pit at the farmhouse. What farmhouse? Macdara sheepishly admits he was saving it as a wedding surprise: he purchased an abandoned dairy farm. Duty calls, so the engaged garda decide to put the wedding on hold to investigate. James leads them to a skeleton clothed in rags that resemble a tattered tuxedo. As an elderly neighbor approaches, she cries out that these must be the remains of her one true love who never showed up on their wedding day, fifty years ago. The garda have a cold case on their hands, which heats up the following day when a fresh corpse appears on top of the bridegroom’s bones. With a killer at large, they need to watch their backs—or the nearly wedded couple may be parted by death before they’ve even taken their vows. . . “Fans of charming Irish mysteries will delight in the ways this convoluted case ensnares the heroine and her supporting cast.” —Kirkus Reviews

Now available in paperback, Allen Foster returns with the gruesome tales of some of Ireland's most infamous and lesser-known murders in history - a murder miscellany, you might say.

When a new bookstore in the County Cork Irish village of Kilbane closes the book on an author’s life, it’s up to Garda Siobhán O'Sullivan to resolve the story . . . Between training the new town garda and trying to set a wedding date with her fiancé, Macdara Flannery, Siobhán is feeling a bit overwhelmed. But an author event at the new bookstore featuring Irish writers taking up residency in Kilbane offers a welcome distraction. One author, Deirdre Walsh, spends more time complaining about the unfairness of the publishing industry and megastar bestselling authors like Nessa Lamb instead of her own body of work. After the evening ends in a battle of words, Deirdre’s body is found the next day in the back of the store—with pages torn from Nessa’s books stuffed in her mouth. Now, Siobhán must uncover which of Kilbane’s literary guests took Deirdre’s criticisms so personally they engaged in foul play . . . “A mélange of clues from classic mysteries plus plenty of Irish charm produce an enjoyable read.” —Kirkus Reviews “Outstanding . . . O’Connor reinforces her place as the queen of the cozy police procedural.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)