The Clew Bay Detective by
Pam Lecky
My rating:
4 of 5 stars
Three and a half stars.
Ali Brennan left Dublin and her job in a thriving landscape gardening business to set up a satellite office in Westport on Ireland's west coast after she broke up with her boyfriend. He was a police officer and never home, but the final straw was when he decided to apply for a job abroad with Interpol without consulting her and just blithely assumed Ali would either be happy with a long-distance relationship or give up her career to move to a foreign country where she would presumably see even less of him than ever. Unfortunately Aidan had become part of the family and Ali's brother and sister are alternating between helicoptering her to make sure she is okay and bringing Aidan up in conversation as often as possible.
While Ali is trying to set up the business she is staying in a cottage in the grounds of her aunt's hotel free of charge in return for doing a bit of DIY. Whilst visiting her aunt at the hotel and getting a tour of the grounds Ali runs into John Clifford-Murphy, a wealthy Londoner who has recently moved to Westport, and his second wife, who Ali knew whilst she was at college.
Not long after their meeting, the small town is rocked by the news that John, a diabetic has gone missing and his wife is worried that without his insulin he could die. A few days later they discover the worst has happened, John's body has been found in a derelict shack on an uninhabited island in Clew Bay. John was an enthusiastic amateur photographer and had gone to the island to photograph seals, the police assume he either forgot his insulin or perhaps lost it alongside his phone and suffered a fatal hypo attack.
However, John's widow is not convinced. John had suffered a hypo once previously and it had made him ultra-vigilant about carrying his insulin, she claims he would never have forgotten to take it with him and he always put it in his camera bag when out photographing wildlife. So she turns to Ali and begs her to investigate John's death. Now here's the bit I don't understand, why Ali? True the local police have ruled it death by misadventure and the widow doesn't really know anyone in Westport very well but other than remembering Ali from a decade ago, what qualifications does Ali have?
Anyway, aside from that niggle there are plenty of suspects to choose from. John was not well-liked, not least because of his autocratic nature, his decision to withdraw fishing rights from the locals to sell as part of a plan to set up a fishing holiday business. He also had a reputation of being a letch. Then of course there is his first wife's mother, his son and daughter, and of course the widow - they possibly all had motives.
But just as Ali is getting stuck into detecting, aided by her nephew, who has been sent by Ali's sister to intern with Ali for the summer, and a local policewoman who used to work with Ali's ex, Aidan himself turns up ordering Ali back to Dublin and claiming that she has put her own life in danger by acting irresponsibly.
I enjoyed this, there were lots of suspects, a bit of suspense, but it also felt that there were too many plots, Aidan's investigation, their relationship, Ali's investigation, other secrets that emerged etc.
I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley.
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