Andrea Carter (2)

The sixth book in a beloved series. Ben has two mysteries to solve in this instalment. A stranger has moved in with her parents and Ben is convinced he is swindling them. And an author dies suddenly at the local book festival and it looks like murder.

Inishowen is a real place and I love how the author brings it alive with vivid descriptions of the landscape. The little towns like Malin and Moville are all very recognisable and I love guessing which local people some of the characters might be based on. The quirky characters are true to life and bring a lot of heart to the series.

The Inishowen Mysteries have a gentler pace than some mystery thrillers but I think it reflects very well the pace of life we have here in the peninsula.

I was particularly happy to see Moville and the Moville Shore Walk appear in this book as it's such a gorgeous place and close to my heart.

I loved the storyline with Ben's parents and I was as excited for them to love Inishowen as much as Ben does. It's so scary to think about how vulnerable the older generation are to con artists and scams and I was glad that Ben had Molloy on hand to help her investigate the man at her parent's house.

The death of the author was also an interesting puzzle to solve as it was riddled with red herrings, secrets and lies.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The series goes from strength to strength but it is advisable to start at book one as there are recurring characters and story arc involving Ben's background.

Death Writes has left me with the question; what happens next for Ben and Mollloy's relationship? Will Ben's parents feature more in the series? I hope they do.… (altro)

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Fourth in the series is a dangerous passage for a writer. The temptation is to let things get samey, or to overcomplicate things; seldom does one find the writer whose abilities include knowing what makes a series work for the long haul. I think we might have a winner in Author Andrea Carter.

Ben O'Keeffe is glad that Leah, her assistant, will have the very first wedding at Greysbridge. It's a fine old landed-gentry house that Abby and Ian Grey have brought back into their family after a profligate ancestor lost in a card game! What they needed was an event, and a locally beloved soul's wedding is perfect. Until, of course, it isn't...there are disasters piling up on the day, and the deaths of two seemingly unconnected men from different countries occur in such close time and physical proximity that the Garda gets involved.

Which means Ben's ex, Tom Molloy, returns to Inishowen. Which means her casual thing developing with new-to-Glendara Harry Dubois, the new G.P., is suddenly complicated. Which means that Ben's nosy neighbors will quickly be weighing in on which path she should choose...Phyllis the bookstore owner (who's also now a Reverend of some sect or another) and Iain the estate agent aren't likely not to share their ideas with her. Not to mention bestie/vet Maeve. Wouldn't be at all surprised if Guinness the cat doesn't weigh in soon.

What happens next is a bolt from the blue regarding her clients, the Greys...there are more secrets than just the ones we were made privy to in the last installment! And they get...intense. Add to the ordinary parent/child tensions within the Grey family the unusual way their son came to them, then top that off with a revelation or two about their business lives...that's enough for a book, but not for this book.

While the Greys are stewing, and their adopted son running, the issues surrounding the deaths of two people who are apparent strangers to each other are coming together with the odd little island community off Malin Head and directly across the North Atlantic from Greysbridge. There are so many things swirling in the waters between the locales that it becomes a bit wearing to keep track of them. And there are threads that get dropped...Harry Dubois vanishes early and reappears in Ben's thoughts and the investigation barely often enough to keep the name from requiring a bit of flipping to recall...but in the end, his presence and involvement are such worthwhile additions to the story that I'm inclined to be forgiving.

The problems I had with this read were mostly around the pace of the story. When Author Carter put all these pieces together, I think she underestimated how complex machinery needs time to spool up and find equilibrium. In this case, that meant a lot of scene-setting that wouldn't obviously pay off until later. The time we spend following Ben and Maeve around, then Ben and Tom around, is not badly spent. You won't necessarily think that as it happens, but I encourage you to sit with the situations you're seeing and let the slow accretion of facts do their work. Remember the way you learned to solve puzzles as a kid? One piece fits with another, then another after that, and finally there's a whole new pattern at the end. This story's about the best illustration of that truth as any I've read this year.

I don't know much about the Irish relationship to the UK's corner of it, or of Ireland's interest in Scottish independence, but they're clearly coming to a head as Brexit squashes the livelihoods of people too poor to matter to the Tories. And it's not really a surprise that the primary beneficiaries of the situation will be organized criminals, is it.

The actual solutions to all the crimes are plausible, and are just going to keep the local criminal classes thoroughly on the hop, so they're working to our advantage. While these books really can be read as stand-alones, since we're given more than enough information to follow along with who's who and what's what, I don't recommend it. I skipped (inadvertently) book two, Treacherous Strand, and after the spoilers for it in book three felt there was no need to or profit in my urge to go back. We have another year to wait for book five, The Body Falls, to come out.

Why does a year sound like such a long time....… (altro)