Come along with Maura Donovan as she embarks on a trip to the Irish countryside. She is going to seek out her family after her last relative, her Grandmother passed. Maura plans to stay for one week in Leap, County Cork but once she is there she takes a job at the local pub whose owner just passed. She finds that the pub is a busy place at certain times and her experience from working bars in the United States lets her fit in right away. The description of the Irish countryside will put the reader right there. It is beautifully pictured. During her first week, a dead man is found in a bog. The body had been there for years. He is unidentifiable. Next a man who stopped by the pub is found robbed and murdered. Maura finds a letter written to Old Mick, the deceased owner looking for a relative in the area. Could this be the man who went missing years ago in the bog?? Maura finds herself having attempts made on her life. Having only being in Leap for several days, who could possibly want to harm her?? An interesting, informative and intriguing read.

Fun, fast read. Makes me want to visit Ireland.

Maura Donovan, with no relatives but her Gran, lives with her in the Boston Southside, barely scraping by. Gran dies, leaving money enough for her burial and a round trip to Cork, Ireland, so that she might visit an old friend of Gran’s and maybe visit her husband’s grave. She gets to Leap (pronounced lepp), where everyone seems to know who she is. A man of about a hundred years buried in a bog suddenly surfaces, identity unknown. Maura passes by while the Gardaí are processing the scene—while she gas a driver’s license, she’s never had a car, nor driven on a left-lane system, nor driven a manual shift car, and she’s been given her Gran’s friend’s car to use during the visit. Oops. In a couple of days, all she needs is a local map. She finds the pub across from her lodgings in need of another bartender one night, and finds herself a job—she’d worked in enough bars in Boston to tend bar. Then Odd Things begin happening to her. She is introduced to the local Gardaí, due to some of those Odd Things, and a letter from a possible relative of the pub’s late owner, who had no relatives nearby, nor any known elsewhere. At this point, the plot summary is over—but extended family is showing up all over the place. Let’s just say all seems to work out in the end. It’s a grand introduction to this series. I am left with one question: is she ever going to change her ticket back to Boston?

An excellent start to a new series. This reader imagined herself lost in the mystery and longing for that beautiful country.

Nice cozy mystery.