Murder in an Irish Village

De: Carlene O'Connor

Narrado por: Caroline Lennon

In the small village of Kilbane, County Cork, Ireland, Natalie's Bistro has always been warm and welcoming. Nowadays twenty-two-year-old Siobhan O'Sullivan runs the family bistro named for her mother, along with her five siblings, after the death of their parents in a car crash almost a year ago. It's been a rough year for the O'Sullivans, but it's about to get rougher.

One morning, as they're opening the bistro, they discover a man seated at a table with a pair of hot pink barber scissors protruding from his chest. With the local garda suspecting the O'Sullivans, and their business in danger of being shunned. It's up to feisty redheaded Siobhán to solve the crime and save her beloved brood.

©2016 Carlene O'Connor (P)2016 Dreamscape Media, LLC

Excessive Commentary

There is some humor and lots of mystery but there is also much too much thinking and re-thinking and talking and re-talking.

great mystery

I love it when I don't figure out the killer right away. That's the sign of a good story in my book.

Fun murder mystery!

loved it! voice acting was great! highly recommend this book to anyone who likes mysteries

Good Listen

Different approach to a murder mystery for me. The story gives a little insight to life in a small Irish village. The narrators accent brings some reality to the tale. I enjoyed the book.

Enjoyed every word!

The performance was fantastic and the story was great! I will be starting the next book in the series soon.

easy listen

The story is okay. I liked the characters and could imagine the village in the setting. I will listen to another of her stories.

Not bad...kinda quaint. a little affected

Entertaining story, but just a little too cutesy for my taste. I'll leave out spoilers, but the main character jumps to a lot of conclusions.

Brown bread

The story is fairly engaging, but the writing was pretty juvenile and poorly edited. Sometimes sentences would be almost exactly repeated within the same conversation, but with just enough variation that you couldn’t tell if the characters were changing their story or the author had changed her mind about the details and hadn’t bothered to go back two sentences to fix the earlier part. And since the main character wouldn’t comment on it, it seemed like the latter. Events were almost comically dramatic sometimes without it feeling like it was intended to be played for comedy (or failing in execution). The number of times Siobhan dove under or behind things for no good reason was ridiculous. She even knocks over a body at a wake.

The biggest aggravation, though, was the number of times the author mentioned Siobhan’s brown bread. I’m sorry, I’ve lived in Ireland before and folks were NOT that obsessed with brown bread. Make a drinking game out of it if you like, and you’ll be plastered before the end of the second chapter. It’s like the author made a list of Siobhan’s traits and hobbies and then went through the book making sure one was mentioned at least once a chapter. She whittles, wants to go to Dublin but can’t because of needing to take care of her siblings, and she bakes brown bread that the whole town is wild for. And that’s the whole character. Okay, maybe that’s not fair, there’s one more aspect to her character: she loves scooters. Ultimately the character felt flat and unlikeable, especially since she runs around accusing everyone under the sun of murder with almost no evidence, people who were there for her when she needed it. Yes, one of them is a murderer, but she basically alienated the whole town in the process of catching them.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t read this book - after all I stuck with it and did enjoy parts of it. The mystery is fairly good, although one of Siobhan’s brilliant “deductions” was ridiculous: suspecting someone because that person wanted to repair a vase but was allergic to “flowers” as if allergies mean you’re allergic to ALL flowers and there’s nothing else someone would want a vase for? But it kept me engaged. And I enjoyed the nostalgia, as I lived in a tiny Irish village and definitely remember the way everyone is up in everyone’s business, but also looks out for each other. Plus I thought the narrator was fantastic! Really enjoyed her reading.

If you’re looking for a silly, cozy murder mystery without much depth and without creepiness, then this is for you. And maybe the main character, and her g.d. brown bread, won’t irritate you as much as me.

Great Story

This was a fun and I never figured out the mystery until she did. I liked that. Fun Irish sayings as well.

A cuppa murder with a side of intrigue.

Just an excellet wee story of a family with a nose for trouble and a village murder. Great story!