"Death Writes" by Andrea Carter

Attorney Benedicta O’Keeffe’s friend Phyllis is hosting a literary festival in Glendara on the Inishowen Peninsula of Ireland. Somehow, she’s managed to lure Gavin Featherstone, the reclusive Booker Award winner, to appear and speak at the event. The author is as famous for his reclusiveness as for the first novel that won the award – a first novel never equaled by its successors.   

O’Keeffe is worried about her parents, who live in Dublin. A man they met at a grief counseling organization has managed to move into their house, and to their daughter’s eye, acts as if he owns the property. Her significant other, Sgt. Tom Molloy of the Glendara Garda, puts a word in to have the man watched and checked out. That O’Keeffe has managed to convince her parents to stay with her for a few days – and attend the festival – is temporary comfort.

 

During the event, Featherstone is paired with a short story writer for an on-stage discussion. And not long into it, he keels over and is soon pronounced dead. O’Keeffe is drawn into what becomes a murder investigation, as she represents Featherstone’s estranged wife and grown children. A second, newer will appears. And so do a long line of potential suspects, including O’Keeffe’s friend Phyllis.

 

Andrea Carter

Death Writes is the sixth of the Inishowen mysteries by Irish writer Andrea Carter. It’s a veritable Agatha Christie-like story, minus the big country house, with a host of suspects, plenty of motives, and characters who don’t like telling the police, or even their friends and attorneys, everything they know. 

 

And wending its way through the main plot is the sub-plot of the man in the home of O’Keefe’s parents. She suspects he’s mispresented himself from the beginning and is something of a grief con artist, and she won’t be far wrong.

 

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 previous 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.

 

Murder at Greysbridge by Andrea Carter.

 

The Body Falls by Andrea Carter.

Some Thursday Readings

 

An Unconventional Christmas Novel (Mystery) by an Unconventional Writer – Martin Edwards at Crime Reads.

 

Nazi-looted Dutch Golden Age painting returned to Goudstikker heir – Gareth Harris at The Art Newspaper.

 

10 Crime Movies Set at New Year’s Eve – Olivia Rutigliano at Crime Reads.

"The Body Falls" by Andrea Carter

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.

 

Murder at Greysbridge by Andrea Carter.

"Murder at Greysbridge" by Andrea Carter

It’s wedding time in Inishowen, the peninsula of County Donegal in Ireland. Leah, office manager and administrative assistant to attorney Benedicta (Ben) O’Keeffe, is getting married. The ceremony is set at Greysbridge, the new hotel operated by Ian and Abby Grey. It was once Ian’s family home, but the property had been gambled away by his grandfather in the 1930s. He’s realized something of a dream in buying the home and remodeling it; Leah’s wedding is the first big event held there. 

Ben is reading a poem during the wedding, so she’s spending the entire weekend there. Her romantic interest, police Sgt. Tom Molloy, has been in southern Ireland, possibly transferred permanently. His communications with her diminished and then stopped altogether. Ben has had a few dates in town with the new doctor, a cousin of Leah’s, but, so far, that’s all it’s been – a few dates.

 

She’s heard the stories of Greysbridge being haunted, and her room once belonged to Louisa Grey, who died in 1914 and is said to haunt the place. And some weird things begin to happen. Two non-wedding guests are staying at the hotel as well, an American medical student cycling through Ireland and a librarian / writer who’s keen on the house’s history and the stories of the people who lived there.

 

Andrea Carter

Shortly after the wedding ceremony, the medical student dies from what appears to be an accidental drowning. Then the body of the librarian / writer is found in his room, in what looks like death from poisoning. And who unexpectedly arrives to take charge of the investigation but Sgt. Tom Molloy, back from his sojourn in the south.

 

Murder at Greysbridge is the fourth Inishowen mystery by Irish writer Andrea Carter. It’s a strong tale of old family secrets, new family secrets, unexpected connections, and a slight bit of romance. It was going to be hard to imagine the stories without Sgt. Tom Molloy, and it was encouraging to see Carter bring him back in. 

 

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.

 

Murder at Greysbridge is another finely spun story the series featuring “the most northernly practicing attorney in the Republic of Ireland.” 

 

Related:

 

Death at Whitewater Church by Andrea Carter.

 

Treacherous Strand by Andrea Carter.

 

The Well of Ice by Andrea Carter.

"The Well of Ice" by Andrea Carter

It’s a Christmas to remember. Shortly before the holiday, someone torches the much-loved pub in the town of Glendarra on the Inishowen Peninsula in County Donegal. Suspicions focus on the barmaid, who happens to be missing. And then on Christmas Day, when local barrister Benedicta O’Keeffe is out walking with her love interest, Sgt. Molloy of the local Garda, they find the barmaid’s body. The woman has been strangled. 

The arson and murder investigations seem to go nowhere. Too much is swirling around the small Irish town – the pub’s upstairs tenant having heard (and complained about) strange noises in the small hours of the morning; the victim’s husband who seemed to accept his wife’s disappearance as something norm; former residents suddenly returning from abroad; the whiff of eco-terrorism; long-buried family secrets; and the specter of the prison release of the man who killed Benedicta’s sister and was convicted of manslaughter.

 

Andrea Carter

And as she and Sgt. Molloy soon discover, people will say things to an attorney they wouldn’t say to the police. And Benedicta, known as Ben, is pulled deeper and deeper into the mystery.

 

The Well of Ice is the third Inishowen mysteries by Irish writer Andrea Carter. Carter knows well how to arrange a relatively large cast of characters, help you keep all the names straight, and cleverly weave a story that grabs you by the throat and doesn’t let go. If I have a criticism, it’s that the story paces well until the last 30 pages, and then a lot – and I mean, a lot – happens fast and furiously.

 

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.

"Treacherous Strand" by Andrea Carter

Attorney Benedicta O’Keeffe, known as Ben, has put a client off for a day. The client wants a will drawn up; in fact, she seems almost desperate. Ben tells her to return the next day and they’d get it done.  

Except the client doesn’t return; her body is found washed up on a beach. Because of the tide and the way the currents run, the police know where she likely went into the water. And that’s where they find her clothes. The police, including Ben’s sometimes romantic interest Tom Molloy, say it’s suicide. Ben is not convinced. And she won’t let it go, because she feels a sense of guilt in not getting the will done when the woman wanted it.

 

Andrea Carter

The woman wasn’t well known; she’d only been in Inishowen (the most northern part of the Republic of Ireland) for a few years. Only gradually does Ben ferret out the story of her former client’s life – a daughter in Norway, a connection to a religious cult, and affairs with two local men. As Ben gets closer and closer to the truth of what happened, she doesn’t realize that she’s in an increasingly dangerous position. 

 

Treacherous Strand by Irish writer Andrea Carter is the second of the Ben O’Keeffe mysteries, and it’s a page-turner that’s difficult to put down. Carter keeps her story fast paced, with the increasing tension as it approaches a climax. Even the possibility of a romance between Ben and Molloy feeds the tension of the story. 

 

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.

"Death at Whitewater Church" by Andrea Carter

The Inishowen Peninsula of County Donegal seems a cold, almost desolate place in the depths of winter. The northernmost extension of the Republic of Ireland, it’s most rural with some small towns. When they want a major shopping trip, residents head to the city of Derry. Dublin is a four-hour drive. 

Benedicta O’Keeffe, known as “Ben,” is an attorney. Her practice encompasses the northern part of the peninsula, and it usually involves land sales, probate, court filings, and the basic kinds of law practice. Ben is fine with that; she’s moved here to escape Dublin and the guilt she’s placed on herself for the death of her younger sister. She hasn’t seen her parents in two years. 

 

Inishowen Peninsula

She likes the people she works and lives with, especially the chief policeman, Sgt. Tom Molloy. She and Molloy seems to circle each other, trying to make up their minds if there’s something more to their relationship or not.

 

Ben accompanies a property surveyor to check a deconsecrated church property. An English couple wants to buy it and refurbish it as a holiday home. It’s known as the Whitewater Church; it served the community of Whitewater that all but disappeared in the mid-1980s with the death of the local shipping business. They’re about finished the surgery when the discover the church has a crypt. What remains there might have been were removed with the deconsecration. At the bottom of the stairs, however, they find a skeleton wrapped in a blanket. And it doesn’t belong in the crypt.

 

It might be the body of Conor DeVitt, who disappeared on his wedding day six years before, leaving a hole in his family and the community. What the discovery leads to is a decades-old story of an IRA terrorist bombing, family secrets, and the upending of other crimes both related and unrelated. And Ben finds herself at the center of all of it.

 

Andrea Carter

Death at Whitewater Church is the first of five Inishowen mysteries by Irish writer Andrea Carter. It’s so well written and so intricately plotted that at time I had to remind myself I was reading a crime novel, not a literary story. It requires  close reading to keep track of all the characters, a close reading that will be rewarded. And it’s such a good story that, immediately upon finishing it, I ordered the next four. Death at Whitewater Church is that good.

 

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.