Barbara’s rating: 3.5 out of 5 Stars
Series: County Kerry Mystery #2
Publication Date: 10/24/23
Period: Contemporary Ireland
Number of Pages: 320

I love this author’s Irish Village Mysteries series because the characters are fun and interesting and the mysteries are not dark and brooding though they include murder. So, of course, I wanted to try this series as well. I read the first book and rated it well because the characters were certainly unique and though the story was on the dark side, I cut it some slack because of setting up the series, character backstories, etc. However, this second book is even darker and more brooding and the main character’s personality quirks just got to be annoying rather than endearing. It just seemed to drag in some spots and I found myself skimming over the slower and more plodding parts. I do like that the main characters are older – maybe in their forties.

After the last case, Inspector Cormac O’Brien has been permanently transferred to the lovely town of Dingle and is hoping to spend some quality time with his mother before she passes. That, of course, is a pipedream when a peaceful old man is deliberately run down on a country road. To make things even worse, a few days later the body of a beautiful young woman is found tied to a tree – with her hand chopped off. Cormac has done a very stupid thing and must recuse himself from running the case – but he can’t turn loose and let it go. Officially, the person in charge is Sergeant Barbara Neely, but Cormac is right in the middle of it.

Veterinarian Dimpna Wilde has her hands full running her father’s (now her) veterinary practice as well as assuring her father, who is in the advanced stages of dementia, gets the care he needs. Add a wayward son and a wild-child mother into the mix and she probably can’t handle much more. So, the last thing Dimpna needs is to find the body of a young woman tied to a tree.

Cormac, Neely, and the rest of their crew work through clue after clue after clue – and they all seem to point to different people – but mostly they point to the girl’s friends. With Dimpna adding more clues to the ones gathered by the guards, can they solve the murders before another one happens?

Yapping dogs, screeching parrots, and raging bulls all play a role in the very animal-oriented book(series). If you follow the animals, you’ll find the madman – and none too soon because he already has his list of other targets.

I wanted to really love Dimpna and Cormac, but I just couldn’t get there. I made allowances in the first book because of getting the series set up, but I actually liked them both better in the first book than I did in this one. I don’t think I’ll read the next book, but maybe I’ll try one further down the line to see how the characters have progressed. So, while it was a good mystery, I thought it was a bit slow and plodding and didn’t care for the main characters.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

View all my reviews

Barbara’s rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Series: County Kerry Mystery #1
Publication Date: 10/25/22
Period: Contemporary – County Kerry, Ireland
Number of Pages: 320

Dr. Dimpna Wilde, a Veterinarian, has just lived through a horrendous year with the criminal charges against her husband and then his suicide. Now, it seems the horror is only going to continue because a murder has been committed in her small hometown of Dingle and her parents and brother are under serious suspicion. With nothing to hold her in Dublin, she sets out for Dingle to help put things right – if she can.

This is a complex, convoluted tale filled with twists and turns and more red herrings than you can shake a stick at. Detective Inspector Cormac O’Brien has been sent from the Killarney station to handle this very high-profile murder in Dingle. The victim, Johnny O’Reilly, age sixty-nine, is a very rich and powerful racehorse owner who was found sitting propped up against a rock on the beach. He was wearing a designer suit and had a taro card showing the devil in his breast pocket – and nearby, on the ground, were sixty-nine shiny black stones spelling out Last Dance.

Cormac learns there is a long-running, complex enmity between the Wildes and the O’Reillys, and the evidence definitely points to the Wildes as the guilty party. However, something seems a bit ‘off’, just too perfect, for Cormac and though there is plenty of pressure from above, he doesn’t want to arrest someone he isn’t truly convinced is guilty. The more he learns of the two families, he wonders if perhaps he isn’t wrong – maybe one or more of the Wildes are guilty. Still, the daughter, Dempna, seems very straightforward, insightful, and honest. She’s sure it wasn’t her parents. If not them, who?

As Cormac tugs on thread after thread, some pull free and add nothing, while others lead him to new knowledge and more threads. How many threads will he be able to pull before he finds the guilty party – or the higher-ups take him off the case and declare their preferred guilty party?

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and recommend it. You’ll enjoy the characters of Dempna and Cormac and a few others, but you’ll be scratching your head and wondering how others are still allowed to live and breathe. It will be interesting to see, in future books, how Dempna and Cormac each manage to deal with an aging, infirm parent and perhaps form a romantic relationship. I’m looking forward to the next book in the series, Some of Us Are Looking, releasing October 24, 2023. Also, as a sadly inept American, I must confess that I am sure I butchered the pronunciation of what I am sure are beautiful names – such as Saiorse. I most humbly apologize to anyone with that beautiful name and hope you’ll forgive me – even though the pronunciations were said only in my head.

View all my reviews