A Hunt in Winter
A Joe Swallow Mystery
-
-
4.5 • 2 Ratings
-
-
- $14.99
-
- $14.99
Publisher Description
In Dublin, newly promoted detective inspector Joe Swallow’s life looks to be taking a turn for the better. In addition to his promotion, he’s settled into a comfortable arrangement with his landlady and paramour, Maria Walsh. That is, until his newfound peace is chaotically uprooted when a series of violent attacks against women lead to an outbreak of panic and fear. Things on the homefront are about to change in an unexpected way.
In London, Charles Stewart Parnell tirelessly pursues the Irish cause for Home Rule. While the British are eager to discredit the Irish parliamentary leader and quash the growing movement towards independence, Swallow’s conflicted loyalties pull him in different directions.
As he continues his hunt for a terrifying killer, Swallow has no choice but to traverse this volatile political scene in A Hunt in Winter, Conor Brady’s thrilling third Joe Swallow mystery.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
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life, in particular his decision to marry the woman who's carrying his child, distract him from his grim work, they are superseded by a professional request that highlights the tensions he experiences as a patriotic Irishman working for the English.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.
