On a rocky beach in the southwest of Ireland, the body of Jimmy O’Reilly, sixty-nine years old and dressed in a suit and his dancing shoes, is propped on a boulder, staring sightlessly out to sea. A cryptic message is spelled out next to the body with sixty-nine polished black stones and a discarded vial of deadly veterinarian medication lies nearby. Jimmy was a wealthy racehorse owner, known far and wide as The Dancing Man. In a town like Dingle, everyone knows a little something about everyone else. But dig a bit deeper, and there’s always much more to find. And when Detective Inspector Cormac O'Brien is dispatched out of Killarney to lead the murder inquiry, he's determined to unearth every last buried secret.
Dimpna Wilde hasn’t been home in years. As picturesque as Dingle may be for tourists in search of their roots and the perfect jumper, to her it means family drama and personal complications. In fairness, Dublin hasn’t worked out quite as she hoped either. Faced with a triple bombshell—her mother rumored to be in a relationship with Jimmy, her father’s dementia is escalating, and her brother is avoiding her calls—Dimpna moves back to clear her family of suspicion.
Despite plenty of other suspects, the guards are crawling over the Wildes. But the horse business can be a brutal one, and as Dimpna becomes more involved with her old acquaintances and haunts, the depth of lingering grudges becomes clear. Theft, extortion, jealousy and greed. As Dimpna takes over the family practice, she's in a race with the detective inspector to uncover the dark, twisting truth, no matter how close to home it strikes . . .
Carlene O’Connor comes from a long line of Irish storytellers. Her great-grandmother emigrated from Ireland to America filled with tales and the stories have been flowing ever since. Of all of the places across the pond she’s wandered, she fell most in love with a walled town in County Limerick and was inspired to create the town of Kilbane, County Cork. Carlene currently divides her time between New York and Emerald Isle.
My thoughts
I am a fan of anything Irish, including Irish authors and books set in Ireland. I have read a few of Carlene O'Connor's books in the An Irish Village Mystery and loved them. I was offered a copy of No Strangers Here, the first in a new series by Carlene O'Connor. Jumped right on that offer. Glad I did too!
The story starts off right out of the chute with a murdered man, Johnny O'Reilly, found on the beach with his suit and dancing shoes on. The O'Reilly's are a prominent horse racing family in Dingle, Ireland. Of course, there is a lot of speculation as to who did it and why he was killed. This is a family with lots of secrets and enemies. It is up to the garda to determine what happened. Enter Detective Inspector Cormac O'Brien from Killarney is sent in to investigate.
Dr.Dimpna Wilde, a vet who has come home to Dingle, where she worked in Dublin has not worked out and she has found out that her father, the local vet, is suffering from dementia and as it gets worse, she feels that her place is at home helping her father. Her brother is nowhere to be found so it is up to her to clear her family of any suspicion in the murder of Johnny.
Out of the list of suspects, there are rumors of jealousy, theft, and greed and it is up to the detective inspector and Dimpna to uncover the clues that lead them into something deeper than they had thought.
Knowing this author's work, the suspense was expected. Just when you think you know who the killer was, more clues send you in another direction and have the reader trying to figure out the who and why. This is a well-written story that will be sure to please fans of Carlene O'Connor. I know that I am a fan and eagerly await the next in the series. In the meantime, I will catch up on the books in other series that I missed.
I give it 5 stars
I received a copy of the book for review purposes only.
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