Mags Munroe

My twelve-year-old daughter frequently moans that Ballycarrick is the most boring town in Ireland. Nothing ever happens here. She's right. And as the local police sergeant, this is something I'm delighted about. I've enough to worry about-the polar ice-caps, the evil monster that's shrinking my trousers, not to mention the hot flushes-without having to be like one of those gritty Netflix cops, chasing criminals down alleyways and busting drug deals. So, life is calm and fairly predictable. Until something unthinkable happens in our sleepy backwater. A crime, but not like anything I've ever seen before. It's a complete mystery. And it's up to me to solve it.

If you want to disappear, start again, make a new life, a small Irish village is probably not the wisest place to go, since anonymity is not something we do well here. The arrival of someone new is always a cause for twitching curtains and whispered conversations. But here, like everywhere, people have their secrets, and as the local sergeant I'm expected to have my eyes peeled for anything unusual. And I do. Usually. Until I don't, and the consequences are potentially fatal.

There are some days when being the Garda Sergeant of a small Irish town really tests me. Having to police my family and friends is a necessary evil, but when I'm faced with arresting half the children in the town, and discovering someone close to me among the offenders, well, those days I really wish I'd chosen a different career. Irate parents are not my only problem unfortunately, as I'm then called to manage a baying mob of strangers, bearing placards and demanding change. I'm all for peaceful protest, but these people were threatening the vulnerable, and I'm just not having that. So, after a very long week, I just want to go home and put my feet up, when a dramatic, decades-old secret is revealed. It shocks everyone in the family to the core, and it feels like everywhere I turn, where once there was trust and honesty, now there are nothing but lies. I usually know what to do for the best, but faced with this, I'm unsure. Should I trust my instincts and bend the rules, or should I apply the law to the letter?

If you think nothing interesting ever happens in a small Irish town, think again. Ballycarrick is changing rapidly and not everyone is happy. No more a sleepy backwater, where everyone knows everyone else, and their business, the expansion of cities and towns into rural Ireland means opportunity for some undoubtedly, but not for everyone. Sergeant Mags Munroe finds herself faced with a situation so unlikely it's almost laughable, but as things unfold, what seemed like a joke, is no longer funny, as sinister influences from much further afield take a keen interest in Ballycarrick, but why? This, combined with millennial new Garda recruits, obstreperous teenagers, octogenarian parents, and a husband with an infuriating new hobby, all contrive to test Mag's patience like never before.

In the quirky Irish town of Ballycarrick, Sergeant Mags Munroe is busy. When Chance Your Arm, an internationally acclaimed showjumper, mysteriously vanishes and a troubled celebrity seeks refuge in a luxury Irish castle, Mags finds herself reluctantly drawn into two high-profile cases. As well as crime investigation, she must manage feuding families, a leaky church roof and the dreadful D.I. Duckie Cassidy. As the cases unfold, Mags uncovers a web of secrets and deceptions that shake her understanding of the town she thought she knew. Joining forces with Conor O'Shea, the handsome, kind and astute owner of Castle Dysert, Mags combines their considerable skills. With wit, determination, and a knack for uncovering the truth, can Mags solve these seemingly unrelated cases? This delightful Irish cozy mystery will have you laughing, guessing, and cheering for the irrepressible Sergeant Munroe and her charming ally.