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Nuala Anne McGrail #6
Irish Love
Continuing the enchanting chronicles of the fabulous Nuala Anne McGrail and her spear-carrying husband Dermot, bestselling author Andrew M. Greeley takes them once again to Ireland for another thrill-packed adventure.
Back on the Emerald Isle, Nuala and Dermot soon get the feeling that someone is out to get them. They find themselves dodging multiple explosions, and someone starts shooting at Nuala while she is water-skiing in the cold Atlantic. Meanwhile, the handsome parish priest, Father Jack, has given Dermot the diary of a young Chicago newspaperman. Written in the year 1882, the diary tells in horrendous detail an intriguing story of a mass murder and a trumped-up trial in which one of Ireland's greatest heroes was accused of the murders without a shred of evidence. These two stories, ancient and modern, soon get mixed up, and they make for an utterly fascinating tale of murder, betrayal, and redemption with Nuala and her magical powers at the center of it all. Andrew Greeley not only tells us a riveting tale of adventure and derring-do, he gives us a picture of modern-day prosperous Ireland and the engaging and, of course, sometimes villainous people who live there.
Back on the Emerald Isle, Nuala and Dermot soon get the feeling that someone is out to get them. They find themselves dodging multiple explosions, and someone starts shooting at Nuala while she is water-skiing in the cold Atlantic. Meanwhile, the handsome parish priest, Father Jack, has given Dermot the diary of a young Chicago newspaperman. Written in the year 1882, the diary tells in horrendous detail an intriguing story of a mass murder and a trumped-up trial in which one of Ireland's greatest heroes was accused of the murders without a shred of evidence. These two stories, ancient and modern, soon get mixed up, and they make for an utterly fascinating tale of murder, betrayal, and redemption with Nuala and her magical powers at the center of it all. Andrew Greeley not only tells us a riveting tale of adventure and derring-do, he gives us a picture of modern-day prosperous Ireland and the engaging and, of course, sometimes villainous people who live there.
335 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published March 1, 2001
About the author
Andrew M. Greeley
379 books323 followersAndrew Greeley was a Roman Catholic priest, sociologist, journalist, and author of 50 best-selling novels and more than 100 works of nonfiction. For decades, Greeley entertained readers with such popular characters as the mystery-solving priest Blackie Ryan and the fey, amateur sleuth Nuala Anne McGrail. His books typically center on Irish-American Roman Catholics living or working in Chicago.
http://us.macmillan.com/author/andrew...
http://us.macmillan.com/author/andrew...
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
July 6, 2024
Despite my taking longer than usual to read this, it had more to do with my simultaneously reading several other books and paying attention to other activities than to the quality of the story. In fact, I'd say this is one of the more interesting Nuala Anne novels with a bit more complexity in the historical portion if not the narrator. The level of injustice in the historical description of the real Maamtrasna trial of Ireland and the corrupt English justice system gave me a much better appreciation for the level of discord that existed between the nations; as an American, this was not something I read much about growing up and will now clearly go rectify.
As with all Greeley's novels, his Catholic theology is woven into the story via his characters' lives. In this novel, I appreciated that some of the romantic scenes felt slightly less dopey and more plausible than in a few of the prior ones I've read. This was sweet, moved forward the development of the central character and was an enjoyable read.
As with all Greeley's novels, his Catholic theology is woven into the story via his characters' lives. In this novel, I appreciated that some of the romantic scenes felt slightly less dopey and more plausible than in a few of the prior ones I've read. This was sweet, moved forward the development of the central character and was an enjoyable read.
February 21, 2026
Irish Love by Andrew M. Greeley is the 6th book of the Nuala Anne McGrail mystery series set in two timelines: the contemporary Republic of Ireland, and 1882 Galway.
Dermot Michael Coyne, his wife, daughter Nelliecoyne and baby son "The Mick" are spending a few months in Ireland. Nuala Anne is suffering postpartum depression; Dermot hopes being close to her mother in Ireland will help. Nuala Anne has given up singing - forever, she says - and instead she's painting. Dermot hopes she'll recover fully to her former vivacious self. The key is for her to stop expecting complete perfection in all she does.
Home was not our house on Southport Avenue in Chicago, right across the street from St. Josaphat's Church. Nor was it our summer place in Grand Beach, Michigan. Rather it was a bungalow in Renvyle on the far coast of Connemara, a place the next parish to which is on Long Island, as the locals say. Renvyle, by the way, means "bare headland" in Irish, a grimly accurate description.
Connemara is a string of barren mountains on the north side and barren lowlands on the south side, both little more than a network of lace held together among inlets, harbors, coves, and loughs. It is dramatically beautiful for the first two sunny days, and then, as far as I was concerned, harsh and depressing after that. On the rainy days it was, again in my infallible judgment, an antechamber of purgatory.
When the family visits an historic ruin on the Galway coast, both Nuala Anne and young Nelliecoyne sense evil and danger. "BLOOD!" My wife announced. "There's blood everywhere." "This is a bad place, Da." It's a first for Nelliecoyne, as far as Dermot knows; he didn't realize she was also "one of the dark ones".
Melancholy comes easy in the West of Ireland; every contact with my wife with the uncanny tempted me to believe she saw more deeply into reality than I could ever hope to.
I sighed as only someone from the West of Ireland--by adoption at least--can sigh.
My wife was indeed an educated, modern woman--Trinity College degree. She was also, if not exactly a superstitious peasant, a throwback to the Neolithic age.
She sighed, as if showing me how it should be done. "'Tis true."
The wolfhound barked in approval as she always did when Nuala spoke her name.
You can live with a woman for five years, pleasurably enough, and realize that you know less about her than you did on your wedding day.
He soon learns Nuala Anne's thoughts are clear to Nelliecoyne, when they hear an explosion. "Didn't the lads set off a bomb?" Nelliecoyne commented and then went back to her Irish babble. Nuala Anne confides to Dermot that when she was very small, she could read her Aunt Aggie's thoughts, too.
When our daughter was in the diaper stage, I was frequently permitted to change her diaper. Nuala reserved changes for the Mick to herself. "Poor little thing," she murmured, holding him close after she had reassembled his clothes. On the lips of an Irish woman the word "poor" in that context ordinarily did not indicate either spiritual or material poverty. Rather it represented the superlative of the following adjective as in "dearest little thing." (Or "ting" since Gaelic lacks an "h" sound.)
The evil sensed by Nuala Anne and Nelliecoyne stems from a vicious slaughter at Maamtransna in 1882, for which innocent men were hung and imprisoned, based on false testimony and gross injustice. The novel alternates between action in the present, which includes a series of violent terrorist type crimes, and diary entries from 1882, in which a young American journalist chronicles the injustice following the slaughter.
The crimes in the present are less interesting; I found it hard to keep track of or care about the various political figures. The interaction in present time with the Garda is mildly interesting, since Fiona, the pregnant wolfhound, used to be a Garda dog. On the other hand, the diary excerpts are riveting.
The plot of the 1882 story is predictable and eventually leads to a heartwarming end. The present-day plot has a few dramatic surprises, but also ends well (of course!). Humor seasons the present-day plot; Dermot delightfully spars in his head with his own inner critic. Differences and similarities of American and Irish life are sprinkled here and there to add clarification.
modern-day quotes:
I sat in the parlor and sipped a small jar (as they call it in Ireland) of Jameson's.
Blatherskite (a person who talks at great length without making much sense).
I had learned from Irish politicians in Chicago that one reserved serious matters for dessert.
Ashford, a place of which it was said that it was the kind of castle God would have created if he had as much money as a Philadelphia millionaire.
Colm MacManus runs Connemara like Daly runs Chicago. A gombeen man was a crooked businessman.
"Falling asleep in one another's arms," I whispered, "is in its own way as sweet as making love." "If you're over thirty," my wife said as she drifted off to sleep.
His reverence is my brother George, who thinks he knows everything, and the little bishop is his boss at the cathedral, who may well know everything.
He came back in a few moments and devoted himself to the ancient (and often, it seemed to me, timewasting) Irish ritual of steeping and pouring the tea. He did so with the grace of a bishop presiding over a solemn liturgy.
"No good will come of that at all, at all." "Just so," Nuala said, concluding the banter.
"Everyone is welcome in Ireland, aren't they?..." "Even your Romanians?" "Well, no, they're not part of the EU, you know...."
That was a campaign speech. It meant everything and nothing. Come to think of it, he would never rise beyond the precinct captain role in Chicago.
The Mick pulled himself up on a chair leg and then tottered two steps towards his mother, down whose cheeks tears of joy streamed as she grabbed him in her arms.
I leaned over and petted the new mother. "Congratulations, Fiona!" I said. What else does one say to a wolfhound who has just produced three splendid and apparently healthy pups?
"Sure when they let me into heaven won't the both of us have to wear name tags?"
from the 1882 diary:
How can people who live such sad lives be so happy? Maybe that's what it means to be Irish.
"We're Irish too," she tells me, "even though we're Protestants. We're entitled to rents from our land and to a life without terror. The rebels are brutal killers. They kill their own and they kill us. I wish we could go home to England, but England isn't really home." I did not argue with her. I was afraid to hurt her. Yet it seems to me the land is not hers but belongs to the starving people.
There's been a brutal murder up in the mountains of the Connemara region. A family of five sheep farmers murdered in their beds at night.
Connemara is an exceedingly sterile place. There are almost no trees, only bogs and rocks and sterile mountains in the distance.
"You think this was a drunken brawl?" "The lads out here may kill one another in a brawl, but not women. There's something deep going on." "Will they catch the killers?" "Mr. Bolton always finds killers, lad. Not necessarily the real ones."
"Does anyone know who really killed John Joyce and his family?" "Everyone in the valley knows except us." "What!" "The women know which husbands were in their beds that night and which weren't. They talk to one another. The men know what plans were whispered around the last two weeks. They talk. The valley has already solved the crime." "And they won't come forward?" "No one ever comes forward to English law."
In the United States the case against the alleged criminals would have been dismissed out of hand. Here George Bolton permitted a shameful display and then adjourned the hearing to a later date.
"They don't trust the police, though they like some of them. They think that if they try to tell anyone the truth, they won't be believed and worse things might happen. And they're probably right."
Back here in my hotel room with Galway Bay glowing in the moonlight outside my window, I feel the same despair. As an American I believe that good will always triumph over evil. That obviously isn't true.
"Well," he sighed, "'twas a fine story he had to tell wasn't it? Yet there are those who say you wouldn't be all that far from wrong if you thought that maybe Anthony had his reasons." That comment was typical--elusive, indirect, mysterious. It said nothing but it said many things. The implication was that if I knew what everyone in the valley knew, I would understand all that had happened.
"This isn't Chicago, laddy-boy. This is Dublin in the reign of Queen Victoria."
The Crown knew that they could not possibly lose. I wondered if they knew how weak their cases really were. Of if they cared how later history would evaluate their work.
(Convicted prisoner) Pat nodded and said, "I have still my experience of heaven."
Myles sat in the dock as would a king who knew he was under the judgment of a mock court. His eyes surveyed everyone in the courtroom with an even, intense scrutiny. He knew in his heart that they were all guilty and he was not. Some people turned away from his gaze in fear. He paid little attention to the proceedings, often resting his head on his arms folded on the dock. Such contempt could hardly win a jury's sympathy, but it might haunt them just a little bit for the rest of their lives.
The fate of Myles Joyce was sealed.
Defense Counsel did not think to ask how Myles could have ordered the killings in English when he did not speak English.
"What happens to her and the baby?" "I suspect they will both die."
The defendant sought out my face. He smiled more broadly than he had before. He had given me my commission. He had said in effect, I can face the end of this foolishness so long as you take care of my wife and child. I shivered at the challenge he had given me.
The jury was out six minutes. Thus did English law mete justice to Irish-speaking chieftains. Not for the first time.
Later, an Irish-speaking reporter told us that the interpreter had not come even close to capturing the fervor and the beauty of Myles Joyce's last words in the court. Won't they be reciting them in poems and songs for a thousand years, he said. I understood for the first time why Nora loved him.
Quite by chance I encountered Mr. Justice Barry as he was leaving the courthouse. "Mr. Justice Barry," I said briskly. "Er, yes, son?" "Myles Joyce will have no need of God's mercy. Someday you will. May God have mercy on your soul." He gasped and ran away from me.
One innocent man (and perhaps two) had been condemned to death. Four innocent men would spend twenty years in prison. Two men, one of them--Tom Casey--perhaps guilty, had won their freedom by lying to save their skins. The Crown had convicted seven completely innocent men and one guilty outside observer. Three killers were still free to wander the lanes of Connemara.
Author concludes: The story of the Maamtrasna murders is a fictionalized account of actual events.
Dermot Michael Coyne, his wife, daughter Nelliecoyne and baby son "The Mick" are spending a few months in Ireland. Nuala Anne is suffering postpartum depression; Dermot hopes being close to her mother in Ireland will help. Nuala Anne has given up singing - forever, she says - and instead she's painting. Dermot hopes she'll recover fully to her former vivacious self. The key is for her to stop expecting complete perfection in all she does.
Home was not our house on Southport Avenue in Chicago, right across the street from St. Josaphat's Church. Nor was it our summer place in Grand Beach, Michigan. Rather it was a bungalow in Renvyle on the far coast of Connemara, a place the next parish to which is on Long Island, as the locals say. Renvyle, by the way, means "bare headland" in Irish, a grimly accurate description.
Connemara is a string of barren mountains on the north side and barren lowlands on the south side, both little more than a network of lace held together among inlets, harbors, coves, and loughs. It is dramatically beautiful for the first two sunny days, and then, as far as I was concerned, harsh and depressing after that. On the rainy days it was, again in my infallible judgment, an antechamber of purgatory.
When the family visits an historic ruin on the Galway coast, both Nuala Anne and young Nelliecoyne sense evil and danger. "BLOOD!" My wife announced. "There's blood everywhere." "This is a bad place, Da." It's a first for Nelliecoyne, as far as Dermot knows; he didn't realize she was also "one of the dark ones".
Melancholy comes easy in the West of Ireland; every contact with my wife with the uncanny tempted me to believe she saw more deeply into reality than I could ever hope to.
I sighed as only someone from the West of Ireland--by adoption at least--can sigh.
My wife was indeed an educated, modern woman--Trinity College degree. She was also, if not exactly a superstitious peasant, a throwback to the Neolithic age.
She sighed, as if showing me how it should be done. "'Tis true."
The wolfhound barked in approval as she always did when Nuala spoke her name.
You can live with a woman for five years, pleasurably enough, and realize that you know less about her than you did on your wedding day.
He soon learns Nuala Anne's thoughts are clear to Nelliecoyne, when they hear an explosion. "Didn't the lads set off a bomb?" Nelliecoyne commented and then went back to her Irish babble. Nuala Anne confides to Dermot that when she was very small, she could read her Aunt Aggie's thoughts, too.
When our daughter was in the diaper stage, I was frequently permitted to change her diaper. Nuala reserved changes for the Mick to herself. "Poor little thing," she murmured, holding him close after she had reassembled his clothes. On the lips of an Irish woman the word "poor" in that context ordinarily did not indicate either spiritual or material poverty. Rather it represented the superlative of the following adjective as in "dearest little thing." (Or "ting" since Gaelic lacks an "h" sound.)
The evil sensed by Nuala Anne and Nelliecoyne stems from a vicious slaughter at Maamtransna in 1882, for which innocent men were hung and imprisoned, based on false testimony and gross injustice. The novel alternates between action in the present, which includes a series of violent terrorist type crimes, and diary entries from 1882, in which a young American journalist chronicles the injustice following the slaughter.
The crimes in the present are less interesting; I found it hard to keep track of or care about the various political figures. The interaction in present time with the Garda is mildly interesting, since Fiona, the pregnant wolfhound, used to be a Garda dog. On the other hand, the diary excerpts are riveting.
The plot of the 1882 story is predictable and eventually leads to a heartwarming end. The present-day plot has a few dramatic surprises, but also ends well (of course!). Humor seasons the present-day plot; Dermot delightfully spars in his head with his own inner critic. Differences and similarities of American and Irish life are sprinkled here and there to add clarification.
modern-day quotes:
I sat in the parlor and sipped a small jar (as they call it in Ireland) of Jameson's.
Blatherskite (a person who talks at great length without making much sense).
I had learned from Irish politicians in Chicago that one reserved serious matters for dessert.
Ashford, a place of which it was said that it was the kind of castle God would have created if he had as much money as a Philadelphia millionaire.
Colm MacManus runs Connemara like Daly runs Chicago. A gombeen man was a crooked businessman.
"Falling asleep in one another's arms," I whispered, "is in its own way as sweet as making love." "If you're over thirty," my wife said as she drifted off to sleep.
His reverence is my brother George, who thinks he knows everything, and the little bishop is his boss at the cathedral, who may well know everything.
He came back in a few moments and devoted himself to the ancient (and often, it seemed to me, timewasting) Irish ritual of steeping and pouring the tea. He did so with the grace of a bishop presiding over a solemn liturgy.
"No good will come of that at all, at all." "Just so," Nuala said, concluding the banter.
"Everyone is welcome in Ireland, aren't they?..." "Even your Romanians?" "Well, no, they're not part of the EU, you know...."
That was a campaign speech. It meant everything and nothing. Come to think of it, he would never rise beyond the precinct captain role in Chicago.
The Mick pulled himself up on a chair leg and then tottered two steps towards his mother, down whose cheeks tears of joy streamed as she grabbed him in her arms.
I leaned over and petted the new mother. "Congratulations, Fiona!" I said. What else does one say to a wolfhound who has just produced three splendid and apparently healthy pups?
"Sure when they let me into heaven won't the both of us have to wear name tags?"
from the 1882 diary:
How can people who live such sad lives be so happy? Maybe that's what it means to be Irish.
"We're Irish too," she tells me, "even though we're Protestants. We're entitled to rents from our land and to a life without terror. The rebels are brutal killers. They kill their own and they kill us. I wish we could go home to England, but England isn't really home." I did not argue with her. I was afraid to hurt her. Yet it seems to me the land is not hers but belongs to the starving people.
There's been a brutal murder up in the mountains of the Connemara region. A family of five sheep farmers murdered in their beds at night.
Connemara is an exceedingly sterile place. There are almost no trees, only bogs and rocks and sterile mountains in the distance.
"You think this was a drunken brawl?" "The lads out here may kill one another in a brawl, but not women. There's something deep going on." "Will they catch the killers?" "Mr. Bolton always finds killers, lad. Not necessarily the real ones."
"Does anyone know who really killed John Joyce and his family?" "Everyone in the valley knows except us." "What!" "The women know which husbands were in their beds that night and which weren't. They talk to one another. The men know what plans were whispered around the last two weeks. They talk. The valley has already solved the crime." "And they won't come forward?" "No one ever comes forward to English law."
In the United States the case against the alleged criminals would have been dismissed out of hand. Here George Bolton permitted a shameful display and then adjourned the hearing to a later date.
"They don't trust the police, though they like some of them. They think that if they try to tell anyone the truth, they won't be believed and worse things might happen. And they're probably right."
Back here in my hotel room with Galway Bay glowing in the moonlight outside my window, I feel the same despair. As an American I believe that good will always triumph over evil. That obviously isn't true.
"Well," he sighed, "'twas a fine story he had to tell wasn't it? Yet there are those who say you wouldn't be all that far from wrong if you thought that maybe Anthony had his reasons." That comment was typical--elusive, indirect, mysterious. It said nothing but it said many things. The implication was that if I knew what everyone in the valley knew, I would understand all that had happened.
"This isn't Chicago, laddy-boy. This is Dublin in the reign of Queen Victoria."
The Crown knew that they could not possibly lose. I wondered if they knew how weak their cases really were. Of if they cared how later history would evaluate their work.
(Convicted prisoner) Pat nodded and said, "I have still my experience of heaven."
Myles sat in the dock as would a king who knew he was under the judgment of a mock court. His eyes surveyed everyone in the courtroom with an even, intense scrutiny. He knew in his heart that they were all guilty and he was not. Some people turned away from his gaze in fear. He paid little attention to the proceedings, often resting his head on his arms folded on the dock. Such contempt could hardly win a jury's sympathy, but it might haunt them just a little bit for the rest of their lives.
The fate of Myles Joyce was sealed.
Defense Counsel did not think to ask how Myles could have ordered the killings in English when he did not speak English.
"What happens to her and the baby?" "I suspect they will both die."
The defendant sought out my face. He smiled more broadly than he had before. He had given me my commission. He had said in effect, I can face the end of this foolishness so long as you take care of my wife and child. I shivered at the challenge he had given me.
The jury was out six minutes. Thus did English law mete justice to Irish-speaking chieftains. Not for the first time.
Later, an Irish-speaking reporter told us that the interpreter had not come even close to capturing the fervor and the beauty of Myles Joyce's last words in the court. Won't they be reciting them in poems and songs for a thousand years, he said. I understood for the first time why Nora loved him.
Quite by chance I encountered Mr. Justice Barry as he was leaving the courthouse. "Mr. Justice Barry," I said briskly. "Er, yes, son?" "Myles Joyce will have no need of God's mercy. Someday you will. May God have mercy on your soul." He gasped and ran away from me.
One innocent man (and perhaps two) had been condemned to death. Four innocent men would spend twenty years in prison. Two men, one of them--Tom Casey--perhaps guilty, had won their freedom by lying to save their skins. The Crown had convicted seven completely innocent men and one guilty outside observer. Three killers were still free to wander the lanes of Connemara.
Author concludes: The story of the Maamtrasna murders is a fictionalized account of actual events.
October 19, 2024
Fine little story of Ireland and a couple in love. Bit twee but sweet.
April 6, 2013
I'm not Catholic, but discovered Andrew Greeley's books about Irish family life and different topics over the years, and think he tells a great story! I am particularly fond of his Nuala Grail mysteries. Nuala was born in Ireland, and her BF, now husband, Michael Dermott is constantly mesmerized by her. Nuala is fey, as they call psychics in Ireland. Greeley usually has a dual plotline going, where something is going on in Nuala and Dermott's lives where they live now in Chicago, and then a parallel story about some historic happening in Ireland in the past. I am one quarter Irish, and have learned a lot about the country from reading Greeley's books. He also writes several other series things, about families, and about a Bishop who solves mysteries. He does bring the Catholic religion into his stories, but not in a way that is overbearing, and he also brings his Democratic leanings into his books. Anything he writes is a good read and I would not hesitate to recommend him to others!
February 8, 2016
I found this book hard to get into. I warmed to the mystery of the past a lot faster than I did the present mystery. I always enjoy the Noula and Dermot characters but because I just had trouble getting into the story by the time they solved the mystery I was feeling annoyed by them and just really didn't care. I have liked the rest of this series better than this particular book.
Greeley is a wonderful author and overall I like his writing. I appreciate that this was based on a true event. The history was the best part of the book.
Greeley is a wonderful author and overall I like his writing. I appreciate that this was based on a true event. The history was the best part of the book.
July 20, 2021
The Nuala Anne McGrail series always contains two parallel story lines separated by ~ 100 years both involving Irish and/or Irish diaspora. The writing is somewhat formulaic and in this book the 19th century story the better one. The 20th century story felt more contrived than others in the series and too many undeveloped flat characters included. Probably only devoted Greeley fans would consider the time, even if read on a beach without anything else to read, reasonable spent.
April 26, 2018
Past mystery more exciting than the current one. Overall enjoyable.
August 23, 2018
I found this book very difficult to read and follow, so I kept putting it down and reading other books before picking it up again.
January 1, 2012
I've truly liked the books of this series. There are some mystical elements that are a bit strange, but the characters are interesting and have mostly good morals. All in all, these are good mysteries. They are written well also although I was surprised at the level of eroticism considering the series is by a priest.
In each book,the couple solves at least one older often ancient mystery and a current-time mystery that are slightly connected as well as work through a crisis in their relationship or,in the later novels,family life.
In each book,the couple solves at least one older often ancient mystery and a current-time mystery that are slightly connected as well as work through a crisis in their relationship or,in the later novels,family life.
November 6, 2008
I love the Nuala Anne novels they are part mystery with a little history and romance thrown in. Nuala is 'fey' and so her sense of the otherworld leads her and her husband into all kinds of interesting mysteries. In this one, they are visiting Connemara and run across a cottage with a history much darker than it's whitewashed walls make it seem....This was another easy and fun read from the "Irish" series.
July 26, 2012
I've read several Andrew Greeley mysteries and while he's not a great writer the other books have been well developed plots and enjoyable to read. I have now picked this book up at least 3 times and just can't read it - and I don't think it's that I'm reading a series book out of order. The dialogue between husband and wife is impossible for me to read and silly! I'm sure there must a plot in here somewhere, but I quit, it's just not worth reading anymore to find it.
December 14, 2012
I am so torn with this. On the one hand, I dislike the conversational prose and the way the author treats Irish superstition. I also wasn't really a fan of Nuala, but this may be because I haven't read the other books. On the other hand, I loved the history involved in the book, and how it treated Irish/English relations. I will probably read the others in the series, but just for the historical aspect.
May 15, 2008
Not my favorite of the Nuala Anne books, but well done all the same. I think the historical mystery was a little less interesting to me considering everyone new who had committed the crime, they just didn't want to talk about it. Still, the writing was on par with the other books I've read in the series.
December 13, 2008
A mystery from the past and a mystery from the present must be solved by Nuala and Dermot McGrail. The mystery from the past, the brutal murders of a family in 1875 and the conviction and execution of an innocent man was riveting. The mystery from the present was so-so. I got confused with all the characters and subplots.
June 21, 2010
To be fair, I think this is part of a series, and perhaps I should have begun at the beginning. As a stand-alone novel, it was fairly boring, and I have to admit I only skimmed the second half to see what happened. Perhaps sometime I'll pick up the first book, but for now I can't say this one has piqued my interest.
October 23, 2011
Took a while to get into and was very slow until the end. There were too many minor characters too keep straight so the conclusion of the mystery didn't pack as much punch as it could have. However, Nuala and Dermot have an amusing relationship.
Did Not Finish
May 21, 200872 pages read.
August 27, 2008
Didn't make me care enough to ever read another one.
Read
August 28, 2008F Gre
June 30, 2010
Back in Ireland, Nuala & Dermot solve the puzzle of the 1882 Joyce family murders as well as a modern situation at the same site.
February 18, 2014
Love the Irish towns, & slang, brings me home with this author!
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews