Reviewed by Jeanne
When the body of Marguerite Etienne washes up on a beach in
Inishowen, solicitor Ben (Benedicta) O’Keeffe is troubled. The French woman had come to Ben to make out
her will not long before and knew the document had yet to be finalized. Marguerite was determined to leave everything
to her daughter. Unfortunately, the rules of client-solicitor confidentiality
still apply so when sergeant Tom Molloy believes that Marguerite died by
suicide, Ben can’t reveal the reasons she is certain that the woman was
murdered.
But she is certain. And she intends to find the evidence to prove
it.
This is the second in the Inishowen mysteries, but it can
be read as a standalone. For those like
me who are a little sketchy on geography, Inishowen is in County Donegal in the
northern part of Ireland and is a part of the Republic of Ireland. Author
Carter, herself a solicitor, worked in Inishowen for several years. All this is to say that she knows the
territory well, both the physical location (which sounds lovely and wild) and
the ins and outs of working there. A
number of the mysteries I’ve read that use Ireland as a location are written by
Americans and while I hope they have done their research, I sometimes question
a point or two. In these books I have no doubt that the author knows what she
is writing about.
The mystery is well done; the plot is interesting and the
reader shares Ben’s frustrations at not being able to reveal what she knows.
However, the real appeal for me is the well-developed characters and strong
setting. Ben has a lot of baggage from
the past; sometimes she deals with it better than other times. She’s wary of forming relationships but is
drawn to Malloy. Other characters are similarly nuanced.
The setting is well defined and distinctly Irish, all the
while avoiding stereotypes. While some Irish expressions and phrasing appear
occasionally, it isn’t laid on with a trowel, and the conversations are not
written in dialect.
I’m definitely interested in reading more in this series,
having enjoyed the first two. It seems
to me that I can see Carter’s confidence as a writer growing between the books,
so I have high hopes as we move forward.
The books in the series are:
Murder at Whitewater Church
Treacherous Strand
Well of Ice
Murder at Greysbridge
The Body Falls
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