Guinness

This novel, the fifth in a series set in Inishowen, is a well written mystery with likeable characters.  The protagonist is Ben O’Keeffe a country solicitor.  Her law practice is the most northerly solicitor’s office in Ireland. ‘Ben’ is short for Benedicta, though that is not her real name…  She has been in this small rural community for the past decade following a family tragedy.  Here she has made friends. Leah, her secretary/office manager, Maeve her best friend who works as a veterinarian, Phyllis, who runs the bookshop, and of course Tom Molloy, a local Garda.  Ben lives just out of Malin town in a cottage which she shares with her black tomcat whose name, fittingly, is Guinness.  In the first books in this series the reader is made aware that before she came to this small place, she worked in a large law firm in Dublin – and that she suffered a personal tragedy.

In “The Body Falls” Ben has just returned to Inishowen from a six month long stint working in Sarasota, Florida. Her timing could not have been worse as Inishowen is experiencing the heaviest rainfall in several years and the area is flooded to the extent that the town is quite cut off from the rest of the country.

Having read the first novel in this series back in 2018, I’ve been regularly invested in reading each book and this is the fifth instalment. The series has maintained its quality, and I look forward to reading more of life and escapades of Ben O’Keefe.

With themes of charity fraud, sibling rivalry, elder abuse, and the awesome and staggering power of nature this novel was a real page turner. The setting is atmospheric, and the characters likeable. After reading this book I felt decidedly soggy, so well written were the flood scenes. The Inishowen Peninsula did experience devastating floods in 2017 and the author based those scenes on that. The Peninsula was complete isolated from the rest of the country with bridge collapses, downed trees, and multiple road closures.

The author is a solicitor herself, so that part of the narrative is knowledgeable and convincing. Not gritty by any means, yet somehow more serious than a ‘cozy’. The frissons of romantic tension between Ben and policeman/Guard Tom Molloy have developed over the course of the series and they are now facing the truth of their feelings for each other.

I can see how Ben’s ‘nosiness‘ coupled with her line of work and her romantic interest in the town’s policeman will engender many more interesting stories for this series.  The ending left the reader with a perfect segue into the next book. It is a series I intend to follow with alacrity. Recommended. ♣

I received a complimentary digital copy of this novel from Oceanview Publishing via Edelweiss – at my request, for my own reading enjoyment and the writing of this review.

ISBN: 9781608094301 –  ASIN:   ‎ B0B3F9DLRJ –  337 pages

Andrea Carter graduated in law from Trinity College, Dublin. She qualified as a solicitor and moved to the Inishowen Peninsula in Co. Donegal where she lived and worked for a number of years. In 2005 she transferred to the Bar and moved to Dublin to practise as a barrister. She grew up in Ballyfin, Co. Laois.

Connect with Andrea Carter via her WEBSITE or on Twitter and/or Instagram.