Death at Whitewater Church

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

When a skeleton is discovered, wrapped in a blanket, in the hidden crypt of a deconsecrated church, everyone is convinced the bones must be those of Conor Devitt, a local man who went missing on his wedding day six years previously. But the post mortem reveals otherwise.

Solicitor Benedicta 'Ben' O'Keeffe is acting for the owners of the church, and although an unwelcome face from her past makes her reluctant to get involved initially, when Conor's brother dies in strange circumstances shortly after coming to see her, she finds herself drawn in to the mystery. Whose is the skeleton in the crypt and how did it get there? Is Conor Devitt still alive, and if so is there a link? What happened on the morning of his wedding to make him disappear?

Negotiating between the official investigation, headed up by the handsome but surly Sergeant Tom Molloy, and obstructive locals with secrets of their own, Ben unravels layers of personal and political history to get to the truth of what happened six years before.

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Library Journal Review

DEBUT Solicitor Benedicta "Ben" O'Keefe moves to Ireland's Inishowen coast in an attempt to escape her family history. Her latest case, though, lands her right in the midst of another family's problems. She's with a surveyor at the deconsecrated Whitewater Church when they stumble over a crypt and find a skeleton inside. Everyone in town guesses the remains belong to Conor -Devitt, who disappeared six years earlier on his wedding day. Ben, who admits she's nosy, is a confidante for many in town. But stories and relationships don't make sense to Ben. Then Conor's brother dies in a car accident. Ben's friendship with Sergeant Tom Molloy is in jeopardy when a pathologist who knows Ben's family secrets is called in to investigate the skeleton and the second death. While this debut mystery won awards in the author's native Ireland, the protagonist/narrator actually has little to do with the story's solution, although she's on the scene. That may prove unsatisfactory for some mystery readers. The awkward, complex characters fit perfectly into the atmospheric, melancholy novel with a strong sense of place. VERDICT Fans of Ann Cleeves's "Shetland Island" mysteries and Lara -Dearnan's "Guernsey Island" books will appreciate this account revealing another isolated, secretive community.-Lesa Holstine, Evansville Vanderburgh P.L., IN © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

Solicitor Benedicta "Ben" O'Keeffe, the intelligent, determined heroine of Irish author Carter's atmospheric first novel and series launch, runs the "most northerly solicitor's office in Ireland" on the Inishowen Peninsula. "Last legal advice before Iceland," she thinks she should put on her notepaper. A routine job takes her to inspect a deconsecrated church, where, in the crypt, she and the surveyor accompanying her spot a human skeleton. When word gets out of this grisly find, many believe that the remains belong to a local man who disappeared on his wedding day six years earlier. Sgt. Tom Molloy, a friend of Ben's, investigates. That a barred gate locked the victim in suggests foul play. A chance encounter with the pathologist who conducts the postmortem triggers painful memories of a personal loss that Ben suffered eight years before. A potential romance with Tom provides further complications. The complex, slow-moving plot can be challenging to follow at times, but readers will feel the effort is well worth it. Agent: Kerry Glencorse, Susanna Lea Assoc. (Sept.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Booklist Review

Solving a murder is just one more thing to do in many fictional villages in the UK and Ireland, sharing the day with church socials, bookstore visits, and a pub stop. Here a skeleton is found in a chamber of a deconsecrated church in Inishowen on the Irish coast, where the cold gets at any little bit of skin covered in fewer than three layers. Who is the dead man? Could it be one Conor Devitt, who disappeared the day of his wedding six years ago? Whose fresh DNA is left on the skeleton's blanket? These are matters to be untangled by Benedicta Ben O'Keeffe, a solicitor handling the sale of the ancient church to investors and the star of this sprawling novel. Some readers will be happy to go with Carter's languorous pace, relishing every particle of vividly described landscape. Others will wish the talented author had sharpened the scenes a bit, reduced the number of characters, sparked the dialogue, and decomplicated the plot so it didn't need 21 pages of explanation at the end. Still, Carter's world is a bit like that of Ann Cleeves, and this might well appeal to the latter's fans.--Crinklaw, Don Copyright 2010 Booklist

Kirkus Book Review

A solicitor can't help but dig in a small Irish town when unidentified remains are found on the grounds of a local church.Though she's no detective, Benedicta O'Keeffe has a way of nosing herself into situationsor maybe it's more a matter of being at the right place at the right time. In her capacity as a solicitor, she's helping sell Inishowen's Whitewater Church when she stumbles on unburied remains loose in one of the crypts. Ben has no idea who the remains could be, but she reports the incident to her kind-of-friend Sgt. Tom Molloy, though Molloy is clear the interaction is business and that Ben is to keep out of any investigation. Ben is too new in town to have a stake in the remains, but the rest of Inishowen is filled with rumors that the body belongs to Conor Devitt, who mysteriously vanished the morning that was to see him wed to Lisa McCauley. Six years after Conor disappeared, his brother Danny became a bit unhinged, and now he shows up at Ben's office requesting her professional services while in a state too disturbed to convey what seems to be the problem or which services he needs. Ben is also approached by Conor's former fiancee, Lisa, who's just returned from her honeymoon and wants to have Conor officially declared dead so she can start her new life in peace. While Ben wants to help Danny and Lisa, she's distracted by the arrival of a forensic pathologist, who coincidentally knows the secrets of Ben's own dramatic past. Ben came to Inishowen because it was the furthest she could get from Dublin and the troubling death of her younger sister, and the arrival of the pathologist scares Ben into thinking, like the Whitewater remains, her own secrets may not stay buried.Writing with Agatha Christie in mind, Carter draws her heroine as curious, if bordering on interfering, and her debut's pacing as she explores the story encourages readers to seek the same connections she does. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.