A Shocking Assassination

CORA HARRISON:

A SHOCKING ASSASSINATION

The second book in the Reverend Mother series

Ireland. 1924. Reverend Mother Aquinas is buying buttered eggs in the Cork city market at the very moment when the city engineer, James Doyle, is assassinated. Although no one saw the actual killing, a young reporter named Sam O’Mahony is found standing close to the body, a pistol in his hand, and is arrested and charged.

Following a desperate appeal from Sam’s mother, convinced of her son’s innocence, the Reverend Mother investigates – and, in this turbulent, war-torn city, uncovers several other key suspects. Could there be a Republican connection? Was James Doyle’s death linked to his corrupt practices in the rebuilding of the city, burned down more than a year ago by the Black and Tans? Cork is a city divided by wealth and by politics: this murder seems to have links to both.

Reviews

Harrison does an even better job of integrating a fair-play mystery with the tensions of early 1920s Ireland... Well-drawn characters, including a lead capable of sustaining a long series, complement the clever plot - Publishers Weekly

Although it is never a good idea to learn history from fiction, one of the many gifts of historically-based fiction is its ability to inspire curiosity about a past time or place and to evoke a sense of that world and its people. I knew only a ghost of a smidgeon about modern Irish history, but this mystery quickly drew me into the time, its tensions and disasters. The strife between various factions is not only background, but an integral part of the murder – or is it an assassination? – that sets everything in motion. Exceptionally well-drawn characters, a rich setting teeming with possible motives, twists I did not see coming, and a satisfying if heart-wrenching ending made this mystery set in 1924 Ireland a great read. – Debora Ross, Good Reads