Review: Murder in an Irish Churchyard (An Irish Village Mystery book 3) by Carlene O’Connor

SiriusB Reviews / Book ReviewsIrish / mystery2 Comments

After joining the police force of her small Irish village, a local woman must investigate the murder of a stranger in this cozy mystery novel.

After solving two murders in the County Cork village of Kilbane, Siobhán O’Sullivan has accepted her calling and decided to join the Garda Síochána. The O’Sullivan clan couldn’t be prouder, but there’s no time to celebrate as she’s already on another case, summoned by the local priest who just found a dead man in the St. Mary’s graveyard—aboveground.

He’s a stranger, but the priest has heard talk of an American tourist in town, searching for his Irish ancestor. As Siobhán begins to dig for a motive among the gnarled roots of the victim’s family tree, she will need to stay two steps ahead of the killer or end up with more than one foot in the grave.

I GOT THE BOOK ON KU.

Review:

Dear Carlene O’Connor,

I decided to take a little break from reading this series after enjoying the first two books and I am glad I did. I think the break helped me to enjoy this book more and if I decide to continue with the series I will read the next book not right after this one.

I believe that two years have passed after the events of the last book and at the end of the last book we saw that Siobhan was considering joining the Garda college, because she liked investigating crimes so much and thought that may have been her calling.

Well, became a Garda she did and in this book she stumbles upon her first real case.  She thinks that her boss will allow her to continue investigating the murder since she was the first one to be called to the scene of the possible crime, only her boss wanted her to go and investigate the loss of the socks. Of course Siobhan cannot stay away from the murder investigation for too long and the Sergeant who comes from Dublin to take charge of the investigation allows her to assist.

Accidentally that Sergeant turns out to be her former fiancee who broke up with Siobhan when she decided to go to Garda college. I have to admit that I did not expect this turn of events and I ended up liking it and not liking it at the same time. I liked it because I found his reasons for the break up to be perfectly understandable and even relatable and I like when the characters in a mystery series grow and change so I thought two years apart was a good thing for both of them. I did not like it because I do not want mystery series to turn into a melodrama.

Usually when I watch long running mystery series I do not mind a little bit of personal life for the main characters to be shown, but I do not enjoy when it overshadows mystery plot. I think it is the same for the book series. I think the writer kept a nice balance here, but as said it made me worried for the future.  Especially since, while I found the investigation to be interesting and fun to read about, I do feel that the story we, as readers, learned about the murder victim was kind of a soap opera, too. I am talking about the historical background for their story, not the present day one. Moreover, I think the revelation of the real murderer was tied with too neat a bow which I cannot explain without massive spoilers. I still liked it quite a bit.

Grade: B.

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