Murder Strikes Again
The
body arranged upon the altar table was dead; there was no doubt about
that.
The dead man was Cetterick the priest; there was no doubt about
that either.
But who had killed him?
In
fifth century Ireland, Christianity was new and strange, and Cetterick,
the priest, had been cruel and arrogant and had made many enemies.
But
which one of those enemies hated him enough to kill him?
Was
it the unfortunate slave boy?
The
jealous druid?
The
goldsmith in fear for his life?
The
wife whom Cetterick had abandoned?
The
farmer cheated of his land?
And
what about the beautiful Mara? What was she doing outside the chapel?
Once again murder strikes at Drumshee, and
once again Ita and her fellow students at Drumshee law school set out
to solve the mystery.
Cora Harrison writes:
Murder
at Drumshee was a very popular book and lots of fans wrote asking
me for a sequel. I was quite keen on the idea as I felt that I had
plenty more to write about Ita and her friends, Mahon, Diarmuid,
Fergal, Cathal, Aidan and Ninian.
I also felt that it was quite likely that the law school students
would be involved in solving another murder; after all Flann the
Brehon, Ita’s father and the head of the law school, was responsible
for the law and order in the kingdom of Corcomroe.
I first got the idea for the story when a friend of mine who lives
in England was talking to me about the Brehon laws, the ancient laws
in Ireland. She had just read ‘Murder at Drumshee’ which finishes
with the king of the small kingdom of Corcomroe being converted to
Christianity. Her comment: ‘I wonder whether it caused any
trouble at first.’ made me think.
Of course, I thought, it was bound to have made trouble. In the
first place, land would have to be taken off one clan in order to
build a church and to give a living for the priest.
And then, I went on to think, what if the priest himself had been
an unpleasant man? How much more problems would that have brought to
the kingdom of Corcomroe? And, as I always say, when I am teaching
story writing in schools, once you have a problem, you have the seed
of a story – and from that seed I wrote ‘Murder Strikes Again.’
Click here to read the first chapter of
the book
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