NO STRANGERS HERE

Ireland's County Kerry provides the backdrop for O’Connor’s compelling series kickoff.

DI Cormac O’Brien, who’s new to Dingle, must depend on the locals for insight when the body of racehorse owner Johnny O’Reilly is found on a beach along with 69 black stones spelling out the words "Last Dance." O'Reilly was 69 years old, too. DS Neely provides Cormac with background on Last Dance, one of O’Reilly’s horses that was killed in a road accident more than 25 years earlier. It's clear that O’Reilly was murdered elsewhere and his body brought to the beach in a boat. Only a child’s footprints are found nearby. Bucking the powers that be to work the case, Cormac learns that the O’Reillys and the family of Eamon Wilde, their veterinarian, have a complex history that could have led to murder. Eamon shows signs of dementia; his wife, Maeve, who used to go dancing with O'Reilly, reads tarot cards. Their son, Donnecha, who serves as caretaker of O’Reilly’s yachts, is a bit of a wild one. But it’s their daughter, Dr. Dimpna Wilde, that Cormac finds most fascinating. A talented veterinarian, tiny and beautiful, she’s the widow of a man who killed himself after swindling hundreds of Dubliners out of their life savings. Unable to pay her bills when her assets are seized, she returns to Dingle to help her father’s practice and try to extricate her family from a murder charge. Dimpna’s past is about to be torn wide open, revealing various crimes, including her rape by Johnny’s son Sean O’Reilly, and the revelation that what she remembers is not always the truth.

Exciting, convoluted, and rich with compelling characters, this is the best of O’Connor’s Irish mysteries to date.