by Sandra Murphy

Details at the end of this post on how to enter to win a copy of The Lost Traveller, and a link to purchase it from Amazon, and an indie bookstore where a portion of the sale goes to help support KRL.

Maura inherited a house, a pub, and employees a year ago. It’s dawned on her, she now has a family. There’s no need to return to Boston. Now, if she could just get the hang of running a business and a home.

Things have been on autopilot, but it’s time to learn how to plan, turn a profit, and keep customers coming in. It might be a good idea to cook something besides an egg, grilled cheese, and a cuppa tea at home. Her relationship with Mick is moving at glacial speed, about as fast as either of them can handle. Music nights are a hit. It’s time to hire more people, but where do you find them?

With many of the young people off for further schooling, travel, or higher paying jobs in the cities, it’s hard to find reliable help. A dead body behind the pub might have something to do with that. Maura and her customers have helped the garda (police) before, but that was when murder was more removed and a puzzle to solve. Now death has come too close. With no papers or identification, the police are at a loss to find out who killed the unknown man.

Jimmy’s married and no longer working at the pub. Old Billy is a fixture, wise and funny. Gillian is adjusting to life with Harry and Henry, their baby, and little time for her paintings. Rose is on her own and deciding what she wants in her life now that Judith has taken over the care and feeding of Jimmy. There are a lot of changes coming.

This is book seven in the series. Travellers in caravans (like RVs) are in town, maybe immigrants, and a few tourists. Maura’s settling in nicely, gradually becoming more aware of life outside the pub. With her awareness, readers get a glimpse of life in the surrounding towns and cities, even if just by word of mouth. Even a small village like Leap can face questions about immigration and trust of strangers.

Grab a drink, a comfy chair, and the book. When you look up, you’ll be surprised to not see Old Billy dozing in the next chair over, to not see Mick pulling a Guinness behind the bar, Rose bustling about, clearing tables, and Maura greeting the next newcomer. Each book is a visit home, to a place you’ve never been.

Connolly also writes the Museum mysteries (7), the Orchard series (11), the Relatively Dead mysteries (5), two standalones, and as Sarah Atwell, three glassblowing books.

To enter to win a copy of The Lost Traveller, simply email KRL at krlcontests@gmail[dot]com by replacing the [dot] with a period, and with the subject line “traveller,” or comment on this article. A winner will be chosen February 23, 2019. U.S. residents only. If entering via email please include your mailing address (so if you win we can get the book sent right out to you), and if via comment please include your email address. You can read our privacy statement here if you like.

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Use this link to purchase the book & a portion goes to help support KRL & indie bookstore Mysterious Galaxy:

The Lost Traveller: A County Cork Mystery

You can also use this link to purchase the book on Amazon. If you have ad blocker on you may not see the link:

Sandra Murphy lives in the shadow of the Arch in St. Louis Missouri. She writes about eco-friendly topics, pets and wildlife for magazines and reviews mysteries and thrillers for KRL. A collection of her short stories, published by Untreed Reads, From Hay to Eternity: Ten Tales of Crime and Deception can be found at all the usual outlets. Each one is a little weird and all have a twist you won’t see coming.

Disclosure: This post contains links to an affiliate program, for which we receive a few cents if you make purchases using those links. KRL also receives free copies of most of the books that it reviews, that are provided in exchange for an honest review of the book.