On his first day of work, Cormac Reilly was sent out on a domestic disturbance call, only to find the body of Hilaria Blake in her rotting house, leaving behind her two kids, Jack Blake and Maude Blake. Twenty years later, Jack Blake, is found in the freezing river Corrib, and it is ruled a suicide. Aisling Conroy, Jack’s girlfriend, is shocked and grieving. She throws herself into her work as a surgical resident, until Maude arrives. Maude, Jack’s sister, has been away for twenty years and shows up claiming that Jack’s death has to be foul play. Cormac is assigned to re-investigate the death of Hilaria Blake—their mother—and is feeling pressure from the department to charge Maude for murder. Cormac uncovers unsettling information and must decide how to handle corruption and cover-ups in this old Irish town.
If you love mystery novels or want to get into the mystery genre, I highly recommend this Irish mystery novel. Dervla McTiernan, author, does an excellent job of creating a complicated web; there are many spins of police corruption and murder. What I love is that some aspects are unpredictable. In mystery novels, sometimes you can put the pieces together yourself before the characters figure it out, and that was sometimes the case, but I definitely didn’t figure out the whole mystery until I was told. It was a difficult book to put down once the plot really started to spiral. Enjoy being a detective on this one!
Book of the Week is an Opinion culture column written and created by Keenan Yates ‘24 used to give weekly book recommendations in the form of short blurbs and reviews.
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