A Hunt in Winter

August 7, 2017
Brady’s strong third whodunit set in Victorian Ireland (after 2016’s The Eloquence of the Dead) seamlessly integrates the political tensions of the day into the plot. When 18-year-old waitress Alice Flannery is bludgeoned to death in November 1888, Dubliners fear that the murder heralds a series of crimes similar to Jack the Ripper’s ongoing butcheries in London. That prospect increases the pressure on Det. Insp. Joe Swallow of the Dublin Metropolitan Police to catch the killer, which intensifies after a second attack. While developments in Swallow’s personal life, in particular his decision to marry the woman who’s carrying his child, distract him from his grim work, they are superseded by a professional request that highlights the tensions he experiences as a patriotic Irishman working for the English. Politicians bent on discrediting Charles Parnell’s advocacy for Irish independence have sent officers to search for evidence of adultery in the records Swallow’s unit maintains of Parnell’s movements while in their city. The resolution doesn’t match those of Brady’s earlier books, but the series’ historical backdrop should continue to prove a rich source for future entries. Agent: Daniel Bolger, New Island Books.

October 1, 2017

In the wake of Jack the Ripper's recent crimes in London, Dublin residents are terrified when a young waitress walking home at night is fatally beaten. Newly promoted DI Joe Swallow (in his third outing after A June of Ordinary Murders) has few leads, and then another young woman is beaten and left for dead. Social and political issues mix in this fascinating Victorian mystery. It is helpful to have some background in Irish history.--LH

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September 1, 2017
Murder and politics make for strange bedfellows in 1888 Dublin, when Ireland is still chafing under British rule.Despite being Catholic, DI Joe Swallow, of Dublin's famed G-Division, has recently received a well-deserved promotion and reset his relationship with Maria Walsh, his landlady and owner of the licensed premises M & M Grant's. As fearful Londoners see Jack the Ripper confounding every effort to catch him, Swallow may be dealing with a serial killer of his own. Alice Flannery, a young waitress on her way home from her job at the New Vienna restaurant, is so badly beaten that she dies in the hospital. The police do everything they can to come up with suspects, investigating even her boss, her brother, and her priest. Two more young women are also attacked. One of them dies, and the survivor remembers little of her assailant. Meantime, Swallow and his boss, John Mallow, chief superintendent of Dublin's detectives, have another major problem on their hands. Ireland is in constant turmoil, with many groups fighting for independence. In an effort to destroy the credibility of fiery Irish nationalist Charles Stewart Parnell, who's living in England, the office of security has asked G-Division to produce all the logs of Parnell's activities they kept while they were protecting him during his visits to Ireland. Swallow and Mallow are certain that destroying Parnell will only lead to more violence. Under constant pressure from the security office in Dublin and especially from the supercilious Maj. Kelly, Swallow and Mallow maintain that they have no knowledge of the logs' current whereabouts, though Swallow has hidden them in a storeroom in the medical examiner's office. Although the police use every resource to capture the killer or killers, the approach of Christmas finds them still empty-handed. Maria's pregnancy encourages Swallow to pop the question, but not even his nuptials slow down the hunt. The window Brady (The Eloquence of the Dead, 2016, etc.) provides into the everyday lives of ordinary Irishmen caught in a dramatic moment gives his third entry a combination of the best elements of police procedurals and historical mysteries.

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September 1, 2017
Politics intrudes upon police work in 1888 Dublin. Newly promoted detective inspector Joe Swallow is investigating the ordinary murder of a young woman when his chief, John Mallon, asks him to lose materials requested by English officials bent on discrediting Parliamentarian Charles Stewart Parnell for his advocacy of Irish home rule. The Englishmen's search becomes personal for Swallow when his nemesis, Major Nigel Kelly, unexpectedly breaks into the quarters Swallow shares with widow Maria Walsh above the public house she owns. Meanwhile, two more women are attacked, one fatally, and Dublin officials are wary of echoes of Jack the Ripper slayings currently plaguing London. In his third Joe Swallow mystery (after The Eloquence of the Dead, 2016), Brady advances the relationship of Swallow and Walsh in a mystery focused on solving crime in the midst of a tumultuous political time. A fine addition to a strong historical mystery series that leaves Joe Swallow contemplating the policeman's lot.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)