The Death of an Irish Sinner: A Peter McGarr Mystery (Peter McGarr Mysteries) - Hardcover

Gill, Bartholomew

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0380977982 ISBN 13: 9780380977987

Publisher: William Morrow, 2001

Synopsis

Bartholomew Gill's superb crime series featuring Chief Superintendent Peter McGarr of the Dublin police gets better, richer, and more flavorful with the passage of time. Now the gifted author writing at the top of his form gives us a spellbinding work of mystery and suspense in which guilt lies as heavily on the shoulders of saints as on those of sinners and purity and violence coexist in the depths of the human soul.

A priest approaches Peter McGarr on the chief superintendent's rare day off. The man of the cloth has come to report a murder and to make a bizarre request: Could McGarr have the death officially listed as an accident and then pursue the investigation in secret? The answer, of course, is no.

Perhaps the chief superintendent would have been wiser to have accepted Father Duggan's offer of covert aid, since McGarr's official investigation is being oddly opposed at every turn. Yet the deeper McGarr digs, the closer he is drawn to a secret order of religious zealots called Opus Dei a group devoted to enforcing the Lord's edicts no matter what the cost in money...or human life.

But there are unexpected consequences to looking too closely at the activities of an organization that guards its anonymity as obsessively as it pursues its "sacred calling." More death is doubtlessly in the offing as a web of dark secrets, vengeance, and blood spins out across a century. And suddenly the stakes are being raised to a chilling new level, as the madness reaches out to touch the one place where Peter McGarr is most vulnerable: the precious heart of his own adored family.

Once again author Bartholomew Gill presents a splendid, richly atmospheric warts-and-all view of his beloved Ireland, in a novel of mystery that stands proudly among not only the best of his previous works but among the best crime novels of the past decade.

About this title

About the Author:

Bartholomew Gill authored 15 Peter McGarr mysteries, among them The Death of an Irish Lover, The Death of an Irish Tinker, and the Edgar Award nominee The Death of a Joyce Scholar. A graduate of Trinity College, Dublin, Gill wrote as Mark McGarrity for the Star-Ledger. He died in 2002.

From Publishers Weekly:

HChief Superintendent Peter McGarr of the Dublin Police has faced great dangers in 14 previous novels in this fine procedural series (The Death of an Irish Lover, etc.), but never has the danger come from so many directions and embraced so many of those closest to him. The murder of author Mary-Jo Stanton, one of Catholic organization Opus Dei's most important supporters and at the same time a great threat to its secrets, drops McGarr and associates into a nest of vipers. As depicted here, Opus Dei is powerful, secretive and ruthlessly determined to protect its interests. Among its members are highly placed clergy, wealthy and powerful politicians, and trained killers. Its enemies, which include crusading journalist Dery Parmalee, are equally determined to expose its secrets. A phone call from Father Fred Duggan rousts McGarr from his in-laws' home and brings him to Barbastro, the mansion/fortress home of Mary-Jo, where she was killed. Attempts are made to co-opt McGarr and failing that to misdirect him, even by threatening the lives and livelihoods of his family and colleagues. As the doughty Irish policeman explores the tangled lives of the inhabitants of Barbastro, the action turns deadly, driving McGarr to the point where revenge may overrule professionalism. Written with the depth of characterization and subtlety of plot that readers have come to expect from Gill, this is a not-to-be-missed addition to a not-to-be-missed series. (June 1)Forecast: Portraying the real Catholic organization Opus Dei in a sinister light is a bold and controversial move on Gill's part, but one that could result in higher than usual sales.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: William Morrow
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0380977982
• ISBN 13: 9780380977987
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288