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Jordan Mayfair Mystery #2
Secrets and Shamrocks
Meadows, hedgerows, and tree-lined lanes welcome Jordan Mayfair to County Tipperary, Ireland. She’s traveling again with her uncle, travel writer Alexander Carlyle. Their destination is a charming little town, Thurles (pronounced Tur-lis), where old friends, Colin and Grace O’Toole, own Shepherds Guesthouse Bed and Breakfast. They arrive at the B&B in the midst of a search for a missing toddler. The secrecy surrounding Little Jimmie’s disappearance and safe return sets the tone for their stay at Shepherds, where secrets are as plentiful as shamrocks.
While Alex visits the spectacular sights in the region for his travel guide, Jordan is drawn into the dramas of the townspeople. From the warm and welcoming B&B to the traditional Irish pub, Finnegan’s, where music is “the very air that we breathe,” the guests and locals harbor secrets that put Jordan at risk.
Colin and Grace have their own secrets. Their unstable daughter, Bridget, may be charged with the murder of a well-respected doctor. Bridget, Little Jimmie’s mother, has run away to the woods to the cottage of an old woman named Magdala, a believer in leprechauns and fairies. Jordan’s visit to the cottage alerts her “architect’s eye.” Her discovery of a “priest hole” will eventually put her―and Alex―in the most perilous situation yet.
The second book in the Jordan Mayfair Mystery Series finds our Savannah architect immersed in secrets, but in so much more―the history, music, passions, and the indomitable spirit of the Irish who “never forget.”
While Alex visits the spectacular sights in the region for his travel guide, Jordan is drawn into the dramas of the townspeople. From the warm and welcoming B&B to the traditional Irish pub, Finnegan’s, where music is “the very air that we breathe,” the guests and locals harbor secrets that put Jordan at risk.
Colin and Grace have their own secrets. Their unstable daughter, Bridget, may be charged with the murder of a well-respected doctor. Bridget, Little Jimmie’s mother, has run away to the woods to the cottage of an old woman named Magdala, a believer in leprechauns and fairies. Jordan’s visit to the cottage alerts her “architect’s eye.” Her discovery of a “priest hole” will eventually put her―and Alex―in the most perilous situation yet.
The second book in the Jordan Mayfair Mystery Series finds our Savannah architect immersed in secrets, but in so much more―the history, music, passions, and the indomitable spirit of the Irish who “never forget.”
294 pages, Kindle Edition
Published February 25, 2021
19 people are currently reading
73 people want to read
About the author
Phyllis Gobbell
17 books23 followersPhyllis Gobbell's new novel, Prodigal, is Southern fiction, due for release November 2024. Her fourth Jordan Mayfair mystery is now available -Notorious in Nashville (2023)! Award-winner Treachery in Tuscany (2018) is third in the Jordan Mayfair Mystery Series that began with Pursuit in Provence (2015) and continued with Secrets and Shamrocks (2016). She also co-authored two true-crime books based on high-profile murders in Nashville: An Unfinished Canvas with Mike Glasgow (Berkley, 2007) and A Season of Darkness with Doug Jones (Berkley, 2010). She was interviewed on Discovery ID's "Deadly Sins," discussing the murder case in An Unfinished Canvas. Her narrative, "Lost Innocence," was published in the anthology, Masters of True Crime (Prometheus, 2012) and is now available as an audiobook. She has received awards in both fiction and nonfiction, including a Silver Falchion Award for Best Cozy Mystery and Tennessee's Individual Artist Literary Award. She was associate professor of English at Nashville State Community College, where she taught writing and literature.
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
March 27, 2022
I picked up Secrets and Shamrocks on St. Patrick’s Day not only to honor my Irish heritage, but also to read another Jordan Mayfair novel. Like Treachery in Tuscany, it has everything I like in a mystery––great characters, plenty of plot twists, and a marvelous sense of place. Because Jordan is an architect and her traveling companion, Alex, is a travel writer, Gobbell is able to treat us to plenty of local and architectural history. It didn’t matter that I’d read the third in the series before the second. Now I need to look at the book Jordan Mayfair mystery, Pursuit in Provence. A little French cuisine to add to Italian pasta and Irish tea and crumpets.
December 1, 2019
If you love cozy mysteries that will keep you captivated this one is for you. Also if you love books where characters explore beautiful new destinations with a rich history and descriptions that capture the imagination, you'll love this book. The main character and her uncle, a travel writer and former college professor arrive in Ireland to visit family friends and soon discover all is not what it seems in the small Irish town with a kidnapped child, a missing woman, and a murdered doctor. The mystery is engaging without being to intense or gory and sometimes it's exactly what I need.
January 12, 2017
The second in a new mystery series, with Jordan Mayfair and her uncle, who writes travel books. After the first mystery set in Provence, this installment takes place in Ireland. Visiting friends at a B&B, Jordan becomes enmeshed in the lives of the other guests and some locals. A good mystery with great local descriptions.
March 19, 2022
Fun Mysterious Adventure
I enjoyed this story of Jordan and her uncle and their adventures in Ireland. Having a "tour" of some of the famous local attractions added so much to the story.
I enjoyed this story of Jordan and her uncle and their adventures in Ireland. Having a "tour" of some of the famous local attractions added so much to the story.
June 16, 2022
First read b this author very good choicr
Almost could see the beautiful green of Ireland a very good mystery Inter gained in several ways had do many things going on at once plus the feeling of knowing everyone at the B and B. Would love to stay at Shepherds myself.
Almost could see the beautiful green of Ireland a very good mystery Inter gained in several ways had do many things going on at once plus the feeling of knowing everyone at the B and B. Would love to stay at Shepherds myself.
January 10, 2023
Good read
This gives the reader a great look at Ireland. The sights, towns, pubs and life in Ireland. Good solid characters and plot. A must read. Gives you a side trip to a wonderful country.
This gives the reader a great look at Ireland. The sights, towns, pubs and life in Ireland. Good solid characters and plot. A must read. Gives you a side trip to a wonderful country.
March 19, 2025
I admit that this was a DNF for me. There was nothing wrong with this book, objectively. It simply didn't catch and hold my attention, and I don't like to stick around and finish books that don't hook me. I'm sure that it would be someone's favorite!
June 15, 2017
Fantastic! It's a fast-paced read that you won't want to put down!
July 26, 2017
Couldn't put it down and finished it in 2 days! Now I'll read the first book set in Provence.
June 30, 2022
Truly enjoyed !
At first it was a bit difficult to keep all the characters straight but once I had them in tow I enjoyed the story very much!
At first it was a bit difficult to keep all the characters straight but once I had them in tow I enjoyed the story very much!
January 4, 2023
My second read in this series and am enjoying it. Love Jordan and Alex!
January 17, 2023
Better than the first book but perhaps my Irish heritage makes me a bit biased. Love the characters in this series. The story kept me reading way into the night.
September 1, 2024
This is an enjoyable mystery set in Thurles, County Tipperary, Ireland. The story is nicely paced and includes interesting descriptions of the setting. It is reminiscent of Phyllis A. Whitney books.
March 11, 2025
A wonderful story of friends and strangers living out a suspenseful tale that takes place in Ireland. Very descriptive in telling of the travel places in Ireland
March 2, 2019
Gobbell seems to have achieved the careful murder mystery construction which contains an involved cast of thousands, an uninspired writing style, and an exquisitely beautiful setting (by mere identification, not necessarily realised through her writing) yet provokes minimal curiosity in the first two chapters. Such a flat start translated into "Meh" as my basic reaction.
Thoroughly bored by the end of the first two chapters (with far too many characters shunting by to memorise), I seriously wondered if the third was worth pursuing. Well, this title is presented as part of a planned series so the least I can do...etc. But it all emerged to me as curiously and seriously unreal. Not the Cosy Mystery mindless entertainment type of unreal...just Irrelevant Unreal. So why bother with the effort? Is fiction this fake worth reading?
Apparently, travel-mystery is not my thing. Could that be the reason I spent all of 45 minutes grumpily struggling with this title? Maybe it's as simple as that. But apart from the dubious prospect of extensive note-taking to recall characters, relationships etc., I think it has much more to do with the total absence of any allusion to that very real aspect of how Americans-at-large are perceived by Everyone Else.
I run into this issue in so much of the lower to middle range of US produced mystery genre. The rest of North America knows precisely what I'm talking about. Especially Canadians, naturally all Latin Americans and quite possibly a huge chunk of native Hawaiian Islanders know all too well what I'm talking about. And the Irish are not immune. But wait, oh yes...in Secrets and Shamrocks they are twinkly eyed cliches as well.
The premise of Americans-inhabiting-elsewhere, whenever written by an American of Gobbell's level, consistently emerges as a strangely incomplete and oddly naive stance. I suspect it's because Americans in general retain a woeful lack of insight over how others (i.e. the Outside Real World) perceive them...sublimely ignorant of (or refusing to accept?) how anyone would wish to avoid them, now thoroughly confirmed by their own disastrous 2016 federal election.
This sad truism has allowed a still vast swath of the fabulously blind American public to continue to be hypnotized by their circus barker conman in the white house (and now dangerously it seems) believe their own strange and wonderful myths...as well as continue to churn out fiction that chatters to itself like Secrets and Shamrocks, with a point of view that for Others, beggars the point of reading it.
Thoroughly bored by the end of the first two chapters (with far too many characters shunting by to memorise), I seriously wondered if the third was worth pursuing. Well, this title is presented as part of a planned series so the least I can do...etc. But it all emerged to me as curiously and seriously unreal. Not the Cosy Mystery mindless entertainment type of unreal...just Irrelevant Unreal. So why bother with the effort? Is fiction this fake worth reading?
Apparently, travel-mystery is not my thing. Could that be the reason I spent all of 45 minutes grumpily struggling with this title? Maybe it's as simple as that. But apart from the dubious prospect of extensive note-taking to recall characters, relationships etc., I think it has much more to do with the total absence of any allusion to that very real aspect of how Americans-at-large are perceived by Everyone Else.
I run into this issue in so much of the lower to middle range of US produced mystery genre. The rest of North America knows precisely what I'm talking about. Especially Canadians, naturally all Latin Americans and quite possibly a huge chunk of native Hawaiian Islanders know all too well what I'm talking about. And the Irish are not immune. But wait, oh yes...in Secrets and Shamrocks they are twinkly eyed cliches as well.
The premise of Americans-inhabiting-elsewhere, whenever written by an American of Gobbell's level, consistently emerges as a strangely incomplete and oddly naive stance. I suspect it's because Americans in general retain a woeful lack of insight over how others (i.e. the Outside Real World) perceive them...sublimely ignorant of (or refusing to accept?) how anyone would wish to avoid them, now thoroughly confirmed by their own disastrous 2016 federal election.
This sad truism has allowed a still vast swath of the fabulously blind American public to continue to be hypnotized by their circus barker conman in the white house (and now dangerously it seems) believe their own strange and wonderful myths...as well as continue to churn out fiction that chatters to itself like Secrets and Shamrocks, with a point of view that for Others, beggars the point of reading it.
February 28, 2017
Jordan travels with her uncle Alexander, who is a travel writer. In this book their destination is a little town in Ireland called Thurles. The descriptions of the tourist sites they visit are clearly discribed. You almost feel you are there with them. Jordan does get mixed up in a murder mystery while there.
December 2, 2016
Jordan Mayfair, traveling with her writer/uncle, checks into a B&B in the town of Thurles, County Tipperary, and almost immediately finds herself enmeshed in the troubles of the owners. There’s a little boy who has gone missing, a mother who is anything but motherly, an old woman who is slightly unhinged. When the town doctor is found dead beside a country road, Jordan finds herself in the middle of a murder investigation. Who in this idyllic setting might have done the dastardly deed? Could one of the eccentric guests be responsible? What secrets are hidden inside the walls of an old cottage where the innkeepers’ daughter has fled?
Secrets surround Jordan like spider webs in an abandoned house. No matter where she turns, she’s entangled in some new thread of intrigue.
It’s a great story, a “cozy” that will keep you turning pages, a “whodunit” that grabs onto you and just won’t let go.
Secrets surround Jordan like spider webs in an abandoned house. No matter where she turns, she’s entangled in some new thread of intrigue.
It’s a great story, a “cozy” that will keep you turning pages, a “whodunit” that grabs onto you and just won’t let go.
August 22, 2016
As a lifelong mystery reader, I am often able to figure out the "bad guy" long before the ending. Not this time. When the reveal came, I was surprised but satisfied; it made sense. It was also fun to travel along with Jordan to Ireland, one of the places on my bucket list.
December 18, 2016
Fun mystery with lots of great descriptions of the Irish countryside. Part travelogue-part mystery, the setting is woven tightly into the narrative so it doesn't feel at all forced. Lots of little twists and turns to keep the reader guessing.
January 31, 2017
Little too much touristy detail but plot was good
March 28, 2017
This time architect Jordan Mayfair's travels have taken her to Ireland with her travel-writer uncle (last time around, the locale was Provence). A thoroughly entertaining and well-written cozy mystery. Can't wait for the next one in this series.
May 19, 2017
3.5 stars
Above average cozy about architect and widowed mother of five Jordan Mayfair. Her Uncle Alex writes travel books and Jordan accompanies him on his research trip to Ireland. Wonderful descriptions and various snippets about Irish attractions and village life are some of the best things about this book.
Jordan and Alex are staying with old friends who run a B&B, and soon become embroiled in a murder investigation when the local doctor is found stabbed to death. I generally liked these characters, although Jordan's on-again, off-again romance with a rich mystery man seems like a nice unnecessary red herring to me.
Above average cozy about architect and widowed mother of five Jordan Mayfair. Her Uncle Alex writes travel books and Jordan accompanies him on his research trip to Ireland. Wonderful descriptions and various snippets about Irish attractions and village life are some of the best things about this book.
Jordan and Alex are staying with old friends who run a B&B, and soon become embroiled in a murder investigation when the local doctor is found stabbed to death. I generally liked these characters, although Jordan's on-again, off-again romance with a rich mystery man seems like a nice unnecessary red herring to me.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews