Attorney Benedicta O’Keeffe has returned to her practice in Glendara on the Inishowen Peninsula of Ireland, about as far north as you can go in the Irish Republic. She’s spent six months working in Florida; she needed a break and, perhaps most of all, she needed to consider the surprise proposal from Tom Molloy of the Irish Garda. She’s had a young lawyer subbing for her, but it’s now time to come home, resume her practice, and figure out what to do about Molloy.
A charity cycling event is set to begin, starting in Glendara, and the town and surrounding environs are crowded with cyclists, organizers, and families. It begins to rain, which is not unusual for Inishowen, but it keeps raining. The incessant rain leads to flooding and damage to roads and bridges. The low part of Glendara takes on water as well, and soon the town is fairly isolated.
A good friend of O’Keeffe’s, the local veterinarian, is returning late from a call when a body lands on her windshield, falling from a bluff by the road. It had been atop the bluff only a short time; the rain had likely carried it to the edge and then on top the car. The dead man is the major organizer of the cycling event. And while it initially looks like some kind of weird accident, what can’t be explained is what the man was doing on the bluff in a rainstorm near midnight, why his wrists show signs of having been tied from a rope, and what a snake bite is doing on his hand.
Andrea Carter
Molloy has his hands full with the flooding and now he has a murder to investigate as well. O’Keeffe, as she tends to do, finds herself talking and counseling all of the various people connected to the man – and any of whom might be responsible for his death – his wife, his twin brother, his old girlfriend, the employee who took the fall for a failed bank, and potentially others. The victim was not a well-liked or well-loved person.
The Body Falls by Irish writer Andrea Carter is the fifth Inishowen mystery featuring attorney Benedicta O’Keeffe. Published in 2020, it is (so far) the last, but with a couple of loose threads that suggest a sixth may be coming. It’s a good story, with the added feature of the rain and flooding (which actually did happen in the area in 2017), but there is a considerable amount of narrative development at the end.
Carter studied law at Trinity College Dublin and managed the most northerly solicitor’s practice in the Republic of Ireland. In 2006, she moved to Dublin to work as a barrister and then turned to writing crime novels. She’s published five Inishowen mysteries featuring solicitor Benedicta “Ben” O’Keeffe: Death at Whitewater Church, Treacherous Strand, The Well of Ice, Murder at Greysbridge, and The Body Falls.
Related:
Death at Whitewater Church by Andrea Carter.
Treacherous Strand by Andrea Carter.
The Well of Ice by Andrea Carter.
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