Irish Mystery Fiction

When Mariana Rivas arrives from Spain to work as an au pair in the Dublin home of the Mac Converys, Garda Inspector Fionn Mac Convery tries to seduce her. In the course of avoiding Fionn, Mariana experiences the mean streets of Dublin city and meets some of the characters who, in his ambitious rise in the police force, have been damaged by him.

Eddie Sutherland is dead. Normally, Detective Wes O'Brien wouldn't care about another dead drug dealer, but he may just be the man who killed him. Thrown off the force and under investigation, Wes is called upon privately to look into a cheating spouse case.

Scrapped Spring is in the air, but the ladies of the Cumberland Creek Scrapbook Crop hardly have time to stop and smell the roses. Not when famed Irish dancer Emily McGlashen is found murdered in her studio just after the St. Patrick's Day parade - and one of the Crop's own members is the prime suspect. Vera's dance studio may have suffered when Emily waltzed into town, but the croppers know she's not a vengeful murderer. Lucky for her, co-scrapbooker Annie is a freelance reporter eager to vindicate her friend. What she discovers is a puzzling labyrinth of secrets that only add question marks to Emily's murder.

When former San Francisco cop Maggie Doyle extends her stay in Ireland, dealing with more murder and mayhem isn’t on her to-do list. Can she solve two crimes before St. Patrick’s Day? Or will the island’s annual celebrations end in a glittery flame of green, white, and orange?

Lured by her aunt’s promise of a restful Irish vacation, Maggie agrees to help out at the Movie Theater Café in exchange for bed and board. Things are looking up - until the most hated woman on Whisper Island is poisoned at the café. With her aunt as the prime suspect, Maggie and her rock-hard muffins are hurled into the murder investigation.

Now, Bram Stoker's Dracula - the pinnacle of Gothic horror for generations - rises again. When young English lawyer Jonathan Harker arrives in Transylvania on the eve of Saint George's Day, he cannot shake a strange feeling of uneasiness. The air grows colder as he arrives at his destination: the castle of Count Dracula. Jonathan has been summoned by the count for business, and while he finds his new host obliging and polite, he can't help but notice the man's pallid skin, odd lack of appetite, and long daytime absences.

The mystery of the modern thriller pervades the twists in the plot of this remarkable Victorian novel about the disappearance of a young man and the lady who is haunted by more than one terrible secret.

En Angleterre, de nos jours. Meg et Grace Nichols, ce sont peu les pierres angulaires qui cimentent le petit village de pêcheurs d'Ashford, dans les Cornouailles. Tout le monde aime et aide cette mère célibataire qui a tout sacrifié pour prendre soin, seule, de sa fille Grace, une ado lourdement handicapée et totalement dépendante. Jusqu'à ce matin d'été : Meg est découverte assassinée dans son lit ; de Grace, il ne reste que le fauteuil roulant, abandonné dans le jardin.

Sept jours d'idylle... Il aura suffi d'une semaine pour que s'inverse le cours de l'existence monotone de Sarah. Depuis qu'elle a rencontré Eddie sur une petite route de campagne anglaise, la jeune femme est certaine qu'un bonheur sans nuages les attend. Sa vie débute enfin. Le jour où il lui annonce qu'il doit s'absenter pour un voyage prévu de longue date, Sarah n'a aucune inquiétude. Mais le temps passe et Eddie ne revient pas. La laisse sans nouvelles. Ne répond plus à ses messages. Rien.

Susan has everything she ever wanted. A loving husband, an angelic daughter and the cottage of her dreams in County Cork. Her picture-perfect life seems too good to be true. And it is. At a housewarming party with their new neighbours, her daughter Amelia goes missing. As friends become suspects, Susan’s life spirals out of control. And when Amelia’s yellow cardigan is dredged from the lake, every parent’s worst nightmare suddenly seems horribly real. In the aftermath of Amelia’s disappearance Susan and her husband Paul are not themselves. Someone is hiding something.

As 1995 dawns in the North of Ireland, Belfast is a city of army patrols, bombed-out buildings, and “peace walls” segregating one community from the other. But the IRA has called a ceasefire. So, it’s as good a time as any for Monty Collins and Father Brennan Burke to visit the city: Monty to do a short gig in a law firm, and Brennan to reconnect with family. And it’s a good time for Brennan’s cousin Ronan to lay down arms and campaign for election in a future peacetime government. But then a man goes off a bridge on a dark, lonely road; a rogue IRA enforcer is shot; and a series of car bombs remains an unsolved crime.

As a widowed mother of three, new love seems impossible for Freya - until she meets Duncan, and suddenly she feels alive again. While Freya’s older children are less than welcoming, six-year-old Sophie helps Duncan find his place in the family - but even Sophie harbours fears that threaten to overshadow any chance of a new start. The past is hard to leave behind when pictures of Freya’s idolised late husband hang in every room, and the more Duncan tries to find the source of Sophie’s anxiety, the more he is convinced that Reuben was not the perfect husband and father Freya remembers.

Devastated by a broken engagement, Stella Jackson leaves her old life behind for a new start in rural Scotland. But when she arrives in the remote coastal village of Arisaig, nothing is what she expected. At the edge of Arisaig sits Munro House; grand, imposing and said to be cursed by a string of tragic deaths. No less intriguing is its eccentric and handsome young owner, Jamie Munro, who hires Stella as his assistant while he pursues a seemingly impossible aim.

The Beetle tells the tale of an evil, ancient Egyptian spirit seeking revenge on an up-and-coming British politician, Paul Lessingham. The shape-shifting creature that pursues Lessingham is possessed of hypnotic powers and takes different forms, both male and female, as well as morphing into a beetle - a figure that induces terror in its victims.

It was my father’s arrest that brought me here, although you could certainly say that I took the scenic route. Here is rehab, where Ben - the only son of a rich South Dublin banker - is piecing together the shattered remains of his life. Abruptly cut off, at the age of 27, from a life of heedless privilege, Ben flounders through a world of drugs and dead-end jobs, his self-esteem at rock bottom. Even his once-adoring girlfriend, Clio, is at the end of her tether. Then Ben runs into an old school friend who wants to cut him in on a scam.

In the idyllic Irish village of Ballywick, Shayla Murphy is living her dream. With her charming fiancé Seamus by her side, she's just a week away from the grand opening of the Eyerloch Castle Hotel—a high-class haven she's been tasked with managing. Just when the finishing touches are being made, unexpected visitors in the form of the richest family in Australia descend upon the not-yet-open hotel, seeking luxurious accommodations. When a member of the visiting family turns up dead, the grand opening is the least of Shayla's worries.

After four murders take place in the very heart of Dublin City, newly appointed Detective Peter Alfson and convicted hacker Cassandra Roland take the lead on the investigation. A serial killer named the Leopard Moth is leaving a trail of bodies along with the same book at every scene. Their one suspect in custody brings doubt after a fifth body is found. Detective Alfson finds himself in a race against time to uncover the meaning behind the murders and the killer's end game.

In 1846, Valentia McDowell is haunted by dreams of a mystical brooch her grandmother left in Ireland. When she makes the dangerous journey to Ireland, she’s devastated by illness and tragedy. The famine and poverty she encounters force her to reassess her priorities, and she embarks upon a campaign to improve the lives of those she meets.

American-born Cherise Williams believes herself to be heir to an old Irish earldom, and she's come to Dublin to claim her heritage. Under the circumstances, Megan's boss Olga at Leprechaun Limos has no qualms about overcharging the brash Texas transplant for their services. Megan chauffeurs Cherise to the ancient St. Michan's Church, where the woman intends to get a wee little DNA sample from the mummified earls - much to the horror of the priest. But before she can desecrate the dead, Cherise Williams is murdered - just as her three daughters arrive to also claim their birthright.

Paddy Buckley is a grieving widower who has worked for years for Gallagher's, a long-established - some say the best - funeral home in Dublin. One night, while driving home after an unexpected encounter with a client, Paddy hits a pedestrian crossing the street. He pulls over and gets out of his car, intending to do the right thing. As he bends over to help the man, he recognizes him. It's Donal Cullen, brother of one of the most notorious mobsters in Dublin. And he's dead.