Cora Harrison
Christmas, 1510; the Burren, West coast of Ireland. Mara, Brehon of the Burren, has accepted the offer of marriage made by King Turlough Donn O'Brien, ruler of that tiny kingdom of stony land and terraced mountains on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean. The marriage is planned to take place at the Cistercian Abbey on Christmas Day. But, on the eve of the marriage festivities, a man kneeling in prayer...
The Reverend Mother is delighted with her new entrant to the convent. Young Sister Gertrude is well-educated, has worked for an accountant and has an appealing sense of humour. But one autumn morning, Sister Gertrude is found dead inside a small wooden shed, just beside the river. Surely a young nun could...
February, 1512. Mara, Brehon of the Burren, judge and lawgiver, has been invited to the magnificent city state of Galway, which is ruled by English laws and a royal charter originally granted by Richard III. Mara wonders whether she can use her legal knowledge to save the life of a man from the Burren who...
April 1511, Ireland. Mara, Brehon of the Burren, is celebrating the christening of her son when she notices that three of her law students have disappeared from the party. The next morning, one of them is found dead on a lone mountain pass with suspicious wounds. He was carrying an important legal document that has now disappeared.
But why did he choose to deliver it during the...
When Inspector Field shows his friend Charles Dickens the body of a young woman dragged from the River Thames, he cannot have foreseen that the famous author would immediately recognize the victim as Isabella Gordon, a housemaid he had tried to help through his charity. Nor that Dickens and his fellow writer...
A Mystery of Medieval Ireland - 1510. A great feast is being held. Into a crowd listening to the story of Balor, the one-eyed god, come two strangers. The younger of the two, Iarla, bears a letter that claims that the wealthy Ardal O'Lochlainn is his true father - which Ardal vociferously denies. So when Iarla is found dead, with one eye missing, some think he was killed by the god - but most suspect Ardal. Mara, the Brehon - or lawgiver - of the
...November, 1853. Inspector Field has summoned his friends Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins to examine a body found in an attic studio, its throat cut. Around the body lie the lacerated fragments of canvas of a painting titled A Winter of Despair.
On closer examination, Wilkie realizes he recognizes...
"Well-drawn characters, including a lead capable of sustaining a long series, complement the clever plot" ― Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
Reverend Mother Aquinas is asked to prove a young man's innocence in the second of this atmospheric new Irish historical mystery series.
Ireland 1924. Reverend Mother Aquinas is buying buttered eggs in the Cork city market at the very moment when the city engineer,
...Cork, Ireland. 1923. When, one wet March morning, Reverend Mother Aquinas discovers a body at the gate of the convent chapel washed up after a flood 'like a mermaid in gleaming silver satin', she immediately sends for one of her former pupils, Police Sergeant Patrick Cashman, to investigate. Dead bodies are not unusual in the poverty-stricken...
Reverend Mother Aquinas must discover who murdered a much-loved priest in the third of this compelling new Irish historical mystery series.
Ireland 1925. Pierced through to the brain, the dead body of the priest was found wedged into the small, dark confessional cubicle. Loved by all, Father Dominic had lent a listening ear to sinners of all kinds: gunmen and policemen; prostitutes and nuns; prosperous businessmen and
...Ireland. 1925.
Like all who seek charitable contributions, Reverend Mother Aquinas is used to being gifted some fairly dubious items. But nothing like this. On opening the evil-smelling trunk, labelled 'old books', the Reverend Mother is horrified to discover it contains the dead body of one of Cork's richest merchants, wrapped...