Following the 2021 U.S. release of MURDER AT GREYSBRIDGE, solicitor (attorney) Benedicta “Ben” O’Keeffe has served a six-month stint at a Florida law firm, during which there were no homicides in Glendara, Ireland. Shortly before the Florida flight, Glendara’s top cop Tom Molloy had popped the question, to the surprise of them both. “Molloy was the dilemma I still hadn’t figured out. His proposal hung there like a bare lightbulb between us, demanding an answer.”

Ben leaves Florida’s balmy dry season to find hurricane-like rains in County Donegal, where a charity fundraiser bike race along Ireland’s coast is to begin the next day. Jet-lagged, Ben can’t sleep well and wakes to a biblical flood. Bridges wash out, and Phyllis Kettle’s bookstore is flooded. Horrors!

"The motives of many befuddle Ben as she untangles a cluster of clues that resembles a jumble of metaphoric barbed wire. Each is a suspect in this spectacular whodunit."

The funds to be raised will benefit magnanimous Bob Jameson’s assisted living facilities. Everyone adores corpulent Jameson. Except, amongst others, Jude Burns, who says of the Amazing Grace Charity, “Jameson believed very much in the principle that charity begins at home.” Even Bob’s amputee twin brother, Derek, is to participate in the race. Alas, the event is canceled. Glendara is cut off from surrounding communities, and Molloy spends the night with Ben. He gets an urgent midnight call from colleague Andy McFadden, and Ben receives a text from her friend, Maeve, a local vet: “I’ve just had a body fall onto the jeep. A body! WTF??”

Ben and Molloy arrive at the scene, learning that Dr. Harry has discovered what appears to be a snake bite on the victim’s hand. Snakes in Ireland? Naomh Pádraig (Saint Patrick) somersaults in the crypt. “[S]ince the town is cut off, the perpetrator is likely to be still among us.”

Glendara’s populace doubles with cyclists and out-of-towners, all tied in an analogous noose. There’s “quite a list of people who would have been more than happy to see Bob Jameson dead.” Moreover, “Bob had been keeping secrets from his wife,” Amanda, “a woman who’d lived in the shadow of her husband.” The motives of many befuddle Ben as she untangles a cluster of clues that resembles a jumble of metaphoric barbed wire. Each is a suspect in this spectacular whodunit.

Carter’s cozy contemporary Agatha Christie-style novels are set in fictional Glendara, Ireland. The Irish attorney-turned-author’s mysteries have been optioned for a TV series filmed in Inishowen, County Donegal. She shares life in Dublin with husband Geoff Power, a documentary maker.

The Irish surname of Bookreporter’s Dean Murphy is Ó Murchadha, meaning sea warrior. Éirinn go brách! (Ireland forever!)

» Click here to read our interview with Andrea Carter.