Burren Mysteries

A Mystery of Medieval Ireland - Christmas, 1509. Mara, the investigating judge of the Burren, has accepted the offer of marriage made by King Turlough. But on the eve of the marriage festivities, a man kneeling in prayer in the abbey church is violently murdered. Who could have planned to kill the king? Cut off from the outside world by heavy snow, Mara must act quickly to catch the assassin before a second death occurs.

A Mystery of Medieval Ireland - 1510. A great feast is being held. Into a crowd listening to the story of Balor, the one-eyed god, come two strangers. The younger of the two, Iarla, bears a letter that claims that the wealthy Ardal O'Lochlainn is his true father - which Ardal vociferously denies. So when Iarla is found dead, with one eye missing, some think he was killed by the god - but most suspect Ardal. Mara, the Brehon - or lawgiver - of the Burren, is called to investigate.

June, 1510: the Burren, west coast of Ireland - Upon going unexpectedly into an early labour, Mara is alerted to the disappearance of Malachy, the local physician. Mystery follows birth, as shortly after the entrance of her son into the world the body of Malachy is discovered. But who stands to profit from this death and who therefore are Mara's lead suspects? For starters there is Malachy's new wife and her two sons, not to mention the very daughter who helped to deliver Mara's child. But soon we discover that the list of people bearing Malachy a grudge is even longer that Mara could have anticipated.

The enthralling new Burren mystery . . . April 1511, Ireland. Mara, Brehon of the Burren, is celebrating the christening of her son when she notices that three of her law students have disappeared from the party. The next morning, one of them is found dead on a lone mountain pass with suspicious wounds. He was carrying an important legal document that has now disappeared. But why did he choose to deliver it during the night, and what of the two other missing students? Mara must uncover the truth – and it at first seems that the stolen deed holds all the answers . . .

"Harrison, like Peter Tremayne in his Sister Fidelma series, provides a superior brand of historical mystery" Booklist February, 1512. Mara, Brehon of the Burren, judge and lawgiver, has been invited to the magnificent city state of Galway, which is ruled by English laws and a royal charter originally granted by Richard III. Mara wonders whether she can use her legal knowledge to save the life of a man from the Burren who has been caught stealing a meat pie, but events soon take an even more dramatic turn when the mayor's son is charged with a heinous crime. Sure there is more to the case than meets the eye, Mara investigates . . .

Mara the Brehon investigates the death of a clan leader in this historical mystery set in sixteenth-century Ireland by the acclaimed author of Laws in Conflict. In the western Irish kingdom of Burren, Mara is an investigating magistrate charged with upholding the ancient laws. When the leader of clan MacNamara dies under suspicious circumstances, she is called upon to determine truth from lies among conflicting reports. Garrett MacNamara's body is found on the road after a herd of cows has escaped. But what was assumed to be a simple, tragic accident turns complicated-and sinister-when the body disappears. Mara and her scholars must now investigate: was Slaney, Garrett's wife, threatened by two new arrivals, or is she being blamed for her husband's murder to clear the way for a new leader?

When Mara attends the Feast of the Holy Cross at Kilnaboy Church, it is just another duty in her busy life as Brehon of the Burren, responsible for upholding the kingdom's ancient laws. But this special day has drawn the faithful of Ireland and pilgrims from across Europe, for Kilnaboy Church holds a prized relic-a piece of the true cross-inside its tower. When the tower catches fire and the relic is destroyed, chaos breaks out, and Mara begins her investigation. But before she can round up the many suspects among the frantic crowd-including a follower of Martin Luther, who despises such relics as false idols-another crime is committed. A naked body is found dead, spread-eagled in the shape of a cross, in the graveyard behind the church. Sensing a connection between the crimes, it is Mara's task, along with her law-school pupils, to find the guilty parties and uphold the power of the law.

A festive celebration turns into a fight for survival when Mara and her clan come under attack... Christmas 1519 is the twentieth anniversary of King Turlough Donn's reign over the three kingdoms of Thomond, Corcomroe, and Burren, so Mara and her scholars are spending the festive period in her husband's principal court, the castle of Bunratty in Thomond. However, in the midst of celebrations, the Brehon of Thomond is found dead, slumped across a table with a knife protruding from below his shoulder blade, while all around him Turlough's relations and friends dance and feast. Mara's difficult task in probing the motives of the multiple suspects, made worse by her suspicion that someone near and dear to her is involved, is interrupted by a dramatic attack on the castle. Turlough's cannon has been sabotaged and now a trebuchet batters the castle with huge rocks and the lives of all are at risk. Has this treachery and betrayal anything to do the mysterious death of the Brehon, but most importantly how will Mara's husband answer the call for surrender...?

When Mara, Brehon of the Burren, is summoned to the sandy beach of Fanore, on the western fringe of the kingdom of the Burren, she sees a sight that she has never witnessed before during her thirty years as law-enforcer and investigating magistrate: a dead man lying in a boat with no oars. Immediately her scholars jump to the conclusion that the man has been found guilty of kin-murder. The Brehon sentence for this worst of all crimes is that the murderer be towed out to sea and left to the mercy of wind and waves and the ultimate judgement of Almighty God. But Mara notices something odd about the body, something which arouses her suspicions. And something familiar about the boat in which he lies. Soon she has embarked on a full-scale murder investigation. And gradually suspicion dawns that someone near and dear to her is involved in the murder.

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.

An unfairly harsh judge meets a gruesome end in the latest intriguing Burren mystery. It was a macabre ending for an unjust judge: his throat slit by a sharp knife; his body stuffed into a lobster pot and left beneath a powerful jet of water shooting up through the cliffs from the turbulent Atlantic. When Mara, Brehon of the nearby kingdom of the Burren, comes to investigate, she knows that her first suspects have to be the five young men who had received such savage sentences for minor crimes. But there are others in the frame: the nephew of the former Brehon, a man with the power of the Tudor court behind him. The child bride who hated her husband. The ill-treated apprentice. And who was it who was seen on that moonlit night by the confused and elderly Fergus Mac Clancy?