A Fatal Inheritance: A Celtic Historical Mystery Set in 16th Century Ireland: 13 (A Burren Mystery) - Hardcover

Harrison, Cora

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0727885669 ISBN 13: 9780727885661

Publisher: Severn House, 2015

Synopsis

Mara, Brehon of the Burren, must battle superstitious beliefs and fears as she sets out to solve a brutal murder.

When a woman's body is discovered, strangled and bound with rope to the stone torso of Fár Breige, the ancient stone god which stands sentinel above the haunted caves and ancient fortifications of the Atlantic cliffs, the locals believe it was the god who killed her.

In life, Clodagh O'Lochlainn had been a disgrace to her clan, tormenting her former priestly lover, jeering at her husband, robbing her relatives: but could she really have been slaughtered by a vengeful god, as the local population believes? Abandoning preparations for the celebration of her fiftieth birthday, Mara, Brehon of the Burren, with the assistance of Fachtnan and her scholars, takes up the task of solving the murder. Ignoring the ancient legends, she concentrates instead on bringing a mortal killer to justice. But it's only when Fachtnan's small daughter is lost in the labyrinth of passages among the caves that the horrifying truth begins to emerge.

About this title

About the Author

Cora Harrison turned to writing historical fiction after she retired from teaching to live on a farm near the Burren in the west of Ireland. As well as the Reverend Mother series, she is the author of the 'Mara' series of Celtic mysteries, set in sixteenth-century Ireland, and the new Gaslight mystery series set in Victorian London.

www.coraharrison.com

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

For a moment it looked to Mara as though the figure of the Fár Breige had suddenly come to life. A slight breeze from the Atlantic blew into the valley and stirred some strands from the petrified head of the god – not tightly curled filaments of lichen, but something more impossible, more supernatural. Tresses of real hair, iron-grey in colour, were blowing out from the skull. As Mara came nearer she could see arms clasped around the stone torso. And she could see colour and texture: woven wool dyed in various hues. Previously there had been only dark grey stone but now, in some strange way the stone seemed to have been turned into flesh. The mist was thinner here and allowed her to distinguish clothing – the white linen fringe of a léine, an over-garment of nettle-green, glimpsed from within a faded, multi-coloured cloak, a real head, bowed down, boots half covered with the coarse winter grass. One of the scholars’ ponies gave a high-pitched whinny and even Mara’s well-trained horse rose upon its hind legs, its ears laid back, spooked by the weird sight. She dismounted, feeling rather than seeing her eldest scholar, Domhnall, take the reins from her hand, and walked up the slight slope. The breeze faded away and the sea-mist swirled down again, for a moment shutting out the two figures, but then it lifted and she could see that this was no apparition.The woman who, ten days ago, had laid claim to these ancient lands, to dún, caiseal, cairn and to the spectre-filled caves in Oughtdara, a valley that from time immemorial had been haunted by the ancient wraiths of the Tuatha Dé; this woman now stood in the centre of her property, clasped to the torso of the Fár Breige. Mara reached out and touched the clammy flesh of the woman’s face. Clodagh O’Lochlainn was as stone-cold as the fearsome god, the Fár Breige himself.

Edition details

• Publisher: Severn House
• Publication date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0727885669
• ISBN 13: 9780727885661
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 224