The Brigids Cross

The whole island is gathered for the St. Brigid's Day supper, and the guest of honour is the county councillor whose committee vote will decide Carraig Dubh's ferry contract.

He is a man the island needs to charm and cannot stand.

Between the soup and the tea, he collapses in front of a hundred and forty witnesses. The postmortem finds that his heart medication was replaced with something similar enough to pass and wrong enough to kill.

By the next morning, the mainland press has a headline and the island has a reputation: a community desperate enough to kill for its ferry.

Róise Gallagher looks past the obvious public motive and into the quiet rhythm of prescription collections at her shop. The tablets were switched before the councillor ever reached Carraig Dubh, and the reason lies in fraud, fear, and a plan to make an island full of angry people look guilty.