Review by Booklist Review
The Maggie D'arcy detective series continues with this third installment. After resigning from her job as a Long Island homicide detective, Maggie rents a cottage for the summer with her boyfriend and their teenagers on the remote coastline of West Cork, Ireland. She is immediately intrigued by the abandoned Rosscliffe manor house, the former Crawford family estate. Is someone watching from the window? Could it be a ghost? When the remains of a missing man wash ashore near the big house, Maggie unofficially involves herself in the investigation. Was it murder or suicide or a terrible accident? When another dead body is found at the same location, the investigation intensifies amid speculation that the two deaths are connected. In this atmospheric Gothic mystery, Taylor weaves Irish history and folklore together with secrets and hidden relationships to reveal potential motives, such as xenophobia. This story, which could be read as a stand-alone, is perfect for readers of Wendy Webb, Ellie Griffiths, Sarah Waters, and Simone St. James.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Taylor's thoughtful third mystery featuring former Long Island homicide detective Maggie D'arcy (after 2021's A Distant Grave) finds Maggie and her school-age daughter, Lilly, spending the summer on a remote peninsula in Cork with Maggie's boyfriend, Conor, and his son, Adrien. While Maggie wrestles over whether to move to Dublin to be with Conor and uproot Lilly from friends and family in New York, developers have begun to convert a crumbling Anglo-Irish manor house into a hotel. Months earlier, Lukas Adamik was working construction on the project when he disappeared. Despite a cursory search, locals assumed that Lukas had returned to his native Poland, but after Lukas's body is discovered off the coast, Maggie investigates and uncovers a long history involving the manor house and its inhabitants. Taylor is adept at balancing police procedure with the domestic drama of Maggie's mixed family, and her descriptions of the Irish coast and the small town where Maggie is staying will have armchair travelers itching to grab a pint and head to the local pub. Readers will be looking forward to more from this heartfelt series. Agent: Esmond Harmsworth, Aevitas Creative Management. (June)
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Review by Library Journal Review
Maggie D'arcy resigned as a homicide detective in Long Island. Now, she and her teenage daughter, Lilly, are spending two months at a rental cottage in West Cork, Ireland, with Maggie's boyfriend, Conor and his son. Maggie has major decisions to make about moving to Ireland and starting over with training for the Garda. This trip is supposed to be relaxing, but soon after they arrive, a body is recovered from the water. While the local Garda question townspeople, Maggie meets the investors trying to turn a creepy manor house into a fancy hotel. Because Maggie is no longer a police officer, she welcomes the chance to dive into a cold case involving the manor. Drug deals, murder, and xenophobia involving the Polish are juxtaposed with Maggie's family issues in a complex mystery. VERDICT The sequel to A Distant Grave is filled with stunning local color featuring Ireland. It combines a police procedural with family challenges. The large cast of characters and various crimes can be overwhelming, but fans of the series, and those who appreciate the setting, will welcome the return to Ireland.--Lesa Holstine
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
Now that she's quit her job as a homicide detective on Long Island, Maggie D'arcy assumes her long summer vacation in West Cork will be free of past entanglements. As if. Maggie's 17-year-old daughter, Lilly, instantly spots a spectral figure in the window of the cottage they're renting on the grounds of Rosscliffe House with Maggie's sweetie, history professor Conor Kearney. The logical candidate is Dorothea Reynolds, a governess to the children of the Crawford family, who vanished from Rosscliffe Manor in 1973. Maggie and Conor's landlady, Lissa Crawford, a painter who grew up in the manor but sold the big house, is unhappy because she thought Dublin banker Lorcan Murphy and local builder Sam Nevin would refurbish the place, not turn it into a hotel. The customary squabbles between haves and have-lesses are upstaged at least briefly by the discovery on Crescent Beach of the late Lukas Adamik, a Pole who worked for Nevin before he too went missing. The news of his death, which everyone hopes will provide closure for his girlfriend, Zuzanna Brol, instead serves as a prelude to her own drowning. Did she fall, or was she pushed? Though DS Ann Tobin of the Garda Síochána is mourning the fatal overdose of her son, she seems perfectly competent. Even so, Maggie can't resist taking time out from fretting about Conor's ex and Lilly's romance with Lukas' friend Alex Sadowski to ask a few questions, and then a few more. The two women uncover a diffuse web of intrigue that implicates so many suspects it's a relief when one of them is finally arrested. So many crimes and misdemeanors that you'll need a score card. Nice local color, though. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
