Irish Mystery Fiction

After calling Ireland home for six months, Boston expat Maura Donovan still has a lot to learn about Irish ways - and Sullivan's Pub is her classroom. Maura didn't only inherit a business, she inherited a tight-knit community. And when a tragedy strikes, it's the talk of the pub. A local farmer, out for a stroll on the beach with his young son, has mysteriously disappeared. Did he drown? Kill himself? The child can say only that he saw a boat.

Part-time reporter Lucy Stone is writing a piece for the Courier about four Irish step dancing students from Tinker's Cove on the cusp of making it big. But the story becomes headline news for all the wrong reasons when one girl's mother is found dead in her bathtub. Did a stage mom take rivalry too far, or is some other motive at play?

Meet Jack Irish, criminal lawyer, debt collector, football lover, turf watcher, trainee cabinetmaker, and the best Australian crime character we've seen in years. When Jack receives a puzzling message from a jailed ex-client, he's too deep in misery over Fitzroy's latest loss to take much notice. Next thing Jack knows, the ex-client's dead and he's been drawn into a life-threatening investigation involving high-level corruption, dark sexual secrets, shonky property deals and murder.

After returning from her father-in-law’s funeral in Florida, Lucy can almost hear the death knell of her part-time reporter job the instant she meets new hire Rob Callahan. He’s young, ambitious, and positioning himself to become the Pennysaver’s next star reporter. Adding insult to injury, Lucy only gets assigned the local St. Patrick’s Day parade once Rob passes on the story. But before beer flows and bagpipes sound, Rob becomes suspected of destroying more than other people’s careers.

Ireland, AD 671. On the eve of the pagan feast of Samhain, Brother Eadulf and the warrior Aidan discover a man murdered in an unlit pyre in the heart of Cashel. He has been dressed in the robes of a religieux and killed by the ritualistic 'three deaths'. When a strange woman known as Brancheó appears in a raven-feather cloak foretelling of ancient gods returning to exact revenge upon the mortal world, she is quickly branded a suspect. But in their search for the killer, Sister Fidelma and Eadulf will soon discover a darker shadow looming over the fortress.

Bostonian Maura is beginning to feel settled in her new Irish home, just in time for summer tourist season to bring fresh business to her pub. But the first traveler to arrive is thirsty for more than just a pint of Guinness. Althea Melville is hot on the trail of a long-lost Van Dyck painting. Maura agrees to help Althea meet with the residents at the local manor house, the most likely location of the missing art. But when the manor's gardener is found murdered, Maura wonders what Althea's real motives are.

A woman has been murdered and mutilated in her own home, with her liver cut out and a message left within it. Tasked with leading the case, DI Tudor Manx identifies several suspects, including the victim’s estranged husband. But all trails run cold. Then, another victim dies—and from the modus operandi. It seems that North Wales Police are dealing with a serial killer. But who would target the inhabitants of such a peaceful island?

Fifteen of Ireland's finest writers collaborated on this murder mystery that involves searching for the only manuscript of an unpublished novel by James Joyce. Raucous, raunchy, and completely hilarious, Yeats Is Dead! is a diabolically entertaining mulligan stew of a novel. James Joyce would be proud.

Seamus, a down-to-earth park ranger, has always been modest about his background. Living with three roommates and driving a trusty old pickup truck, he never gave Shayla any reason to suspect he was anything but ordinary. Until they land in Ireland, and Shayla discovers he's practically Irish royalty. A holiday that was meant to be filled with festive family fun now carries the weight of public scrutiny. The getting-to-know-you dinner party sets the stage for a complicated holiday. But the celebration takes a dark turn when a guest ends up dead.

Raised in a tribe of street urchins, Maddie Grande was taught to be a thief and beggar on the streets of New Orleans. But Maddie doesn't know her real name or where she came from.Raised by Dexter Grande, Maddie and her twin "brothers" have recently left New Orleans and moved to the bayou. The twins are rarely there, but Maddie has come to love the swamp. She has learned to fish and trap and sell pelts at the local mercantile.

April in Florida and Benedicta (Ben) O'Keeffe is enjoying balmy temperatures during the last few days of a six month stint with a US law firm. A week later, she returns to Glendara, Inishowen, where a charity cycle event is taking place. The town is abuzz with excitement, but it starts to rain, causing the cyclists to postpone the start of their event. The rain doesn't stop—it becomes relentless, torrential. In the middle of the night, Police Sergeant Tom Molloy is called out to Mamore Gap, where a body, dislodged from a high bank by the heavy rain, has fallen onto a passing vehicle.

It’s summer on Whisper Island. Ex-cop-turned-private-investigator Maggie Doyle is looking forward to sun, fun, and romance. Instead, she gets bills, an assault allegation, and a busted wrist. To add insult to injury, there’s a movie being filmed on the island, and Maggie’s diva sister has been cast in it—her debut role. While other residents clamor for parts as extras, Maggie wants nothing to do with the shoot. But when hotshot director Con Ryder asks Maggie to investigate a series of suspicious accidents on the movie set, she can’t afford to refuse.

Ariella always looked up to her late father, the famous Captain Red Beard. She tried to make him proud every chance she could get until that dreadful day he passed away. Now it is up to her to take over her late father's ship, the Red Dawn, and prove to her crew that she is more than just a pretty face. In this intriguing story, Captain Ariella fights off orcs while maintaining her reputation as the most wicked female captain anyone has ever known. She is fearless and has never backed down from a fight.

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.

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.

Black Irish Blues is the return-to-origin story of Caesar Stiles, an erstwhile runaway who returns to his hometown with plans to buy the town's only tavern and end his family's Sicilian curse.

It is only a passing comment in the post office in a remote part of Western Ireland that alerts police to the disappearance of Davin Faherty. But foul play is established when his unceremoniously wrapped corpse turns up in a bog. His brother falls under suspicion, but why kill over a near-useless piece of grazing land? DI Maureen Lyons leads the investigation but relies on trusty Mulholland, the old-school local policeman stationed in Clifden, for the legwork. She has other problems: an illegal cannabis farm and a prospector from a US minerals company who won't take no for an answer.

Join Godfrid the Dane for murder and mayhem in medieval Dublin! Godfrid the Dane makes his first appearance in the Gareth & Gwen Medieval Mysteries in the first book, The Good Knight. He comes to Anglesey at the behest of the treacherous Prince Cadwaladr, but quickly realizes the deal he’s made is not quite what he thought, and Cadwaladr is not worthy of his allegiance. He takes it upon himself to learn the truth about what is going on in Wales and in the process encounters a young Welsh woman, Gwen, and her fiancé, Gareth, who comes to Ireland in search of her.

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.

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.