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This newsletter for the month of March, what? Is this the 2nd newsletter this month? Yep! You betcha! March has two newsletters, and I have the honor of presenting the 2nd one this month and the theme was a bit difficult to choose. We missed talking about St Patrick’s day (I missed the opportunity earlier in the month) but to still catch the spirit, I thought we could spotlight TWO Irish mystery authors in this newsletter. The writers are Carlene O’Connor and Father Andrew Greeley, two best selling mystery writers.
I found Carlene O’Connor work when looking through authors on Amazon. She is a bestselling writers and we’ll talk more about her successful mystery series. Father Andrew Greeley was an Irish Catholic priest , sociologist, journalist and popular novelist. He wrote not only very successful Irish mystery writings but other works in other genres. So, without further adieu, let’s discuss the authors.{/linspace}
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The month of March near the end. We already had St. Patrick’s day this month, and drank our green beer or other spirits, but we didn’t get to talk about all things Irish. Well, before this month meets its end, there are two Irish mystery authors we will look at for this month's newsletter. Carlene O’Connor and Father Andrew Greeley are both writers whose Irish themed mystery stories we will highlight in this month’s newsletter. We’ll let the ladies go first.
Carlene O’Connor is the USA Today bestselling author of the acclaimed Irish Village and the Home to Ireland Mysteries. It is said that she comes from a long line of Irish storytellers(LUCKY!). Her great grandmother emigrated from Ireland, which town specifically not mentioned but she came with many tales in 1897. Hey! My husband’s mother said her great-grandmother came from Cork in the same year. There’s something to that year! Okay, back to Carlene O’Connor. She has a few stories that had the Irish theme feel. Irish is in the title as well. She has the Irish Village series of books and , “Murder in an Irish Village” is book one of nine other books set in Ireland with the same protagonist, Siobhan O’Sullivan, and murder is afoot in Kilband, County Cork, Ireland. In the small village of Kilbane, County Cork, Ireland, Naomi’s Bistro has always been a warm and welcoming spot to visit with neighbors, enjoy some brown bread and tea, and get the local gossip. Nowadays twenty-two-year-old Siobhán O’Sullivan runs the family bistro named for her mother, along with her five siblings, after the death of their parents in a car crash almost a year ago.
It’s been a rough year for the O’Sullivans, but it’s about to get rougher. One morning, as they’re opening the bistro, they discover a man seated at a table, dressed in a suit as if for his own funeral, a pair of hot pink barber scissors protruding from his chest.
With the local garda suspecting the O’Sullivans, and their business in danger of being shunned—murder tends to spoil the appetite—it’s up to feisty redheaded Siobhán to solve the crime and save her beloved brood.Murder in an Irish Village (An Irish Village Mystery): ($23.70 from Amazon.Com)
And so, there are the other books, “Murder at an Irish Wedding” is book 2 in the series but I’m jumping to a book that bears to the mood of this month: drinking and “Murder at an Irish Pub”, which is book number 4 in this series fits the bill completely.
Again, the protagonist is Siobhan and she is full of it in this scene. In the small village of Kilbane in County Cork, for a cuppa tea or a slice of brown bread, you go to Naomi’s Bistro, managed by the many siblings of the lively O'Sullivan brood. For a pint or a game of darts—or for the poker tournament that's just come to town—it’s the pub you want.
One player’s reputation precedes him: Eamon Foley, a tinker out of Dublin, called the Octopus for playing like he has eight hands under the table. But when Foley is found at the end of a rope, swinging from the rafters of Rory Mack’s pub, it’s time for the garda to take matters into their own hands. Macdara Flannery would lay odds it’s a simple suicide—after all, there’s a note and the room was locked. But Siobhán suspects foul play, as does Foley’s very pregnant widow. Perhaps one of Foley’s fellow finalists just raised the stakes to life and death.
With conflicting theories on the crime—not to mention the possibility of a proposal—tensions are running high between Siobhán and Macdara. Soon it’s up to Siobhán to call a killer’s bluff, but if she doesn’t play her cards right, she may be the next one taken out of the game.Murder in an Irish Pub (An Irish Village Mystery): ($24.94 from Amazon.Com)
There is the Irish Village Mystery series, Home to Ireland Mysteries and County Kerry Mysteries…wow! She really dived into all things Irish and I know this is wonderful mystery stories.
Now, we can move on to the other author, Father Andrew Greeley.
He was born in Oak Park, Illinois in February of 1928 to a large Irish Catholic family during the Great Depression. He loved living in Chicago and this was mainly his home base though he had an illustrious career. He is said to have known by 2nd grade that he wanted to be a priest. After studying at Archbishop Quigley Preparatory Seminary in Chicago, Greeley received an AB degree from St. Mary of the Lake Seminary in Chicago in 1950, a Bachelor of Sacred Theology (STB) in 1952, and a Licentiate of Sacred Theology (STL) in 1954, when he was ordained for the Archdiocese of Chicago.
From 1954 to 1964, Greeley served as an assistant pastor at Christ the King parish in Chicago, during which time he studied sociology at the University of Chicago. His first book, The Church in the Suburbs (1958), was drawn from notes a sociology professor had encouraged him to take describing his experiences.
He received a Master of Arts in 1961 and a PhD in 1962.
His doctoral dissertation dealt with the influence of religion on the career plans of 1961 college graduates. At various times, Greeley was a professor at the University of Arizona, the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Chicago. He was denied tenure by the University of Chicago in 1973, despite having been a faculty member there for a decade and having published dozens of books; he attributed the denial to anti-Catholic prejudice, although a colleague said his cantankerous temperament was more to blame.
In 1991, he was granted a professorship in social science at the University.
Finally, we get to the part where he writes Irish mystery books in 1994. It is said that Greeley “He never had an unpublished thought. The only way that I can write fiction is to keep the hours between 6:00 am to 9:00 am sacred”. He published his first work, “The Magic Cup ” , a fantasy work about a young king who would lead Ireland from paganism to Catholicism in 1975. His next novel was called “Death in April in 1980. Then, the next novel, “The Cardinal Sins” was his first work to become a major work of fiction.
So, Father Greeley wrote 25 works of fiction and other writings before he penned his first Irish themed mystery in 1994. This book was called, “Irish Gold”, and the main protagonist in this novel was an Irish woman called Nuala Anne McGrail who was not only the one who solved the mysteries but was blessed with the gift of “second sight”. From “Irish Gold” in 1994, four years later he wrote “Irish Lace” in 1996 and then in 1998, he wrote one of the books from the series titled, “Irish Whiskey”, while native Chicagoan Dermot Coyne proceeds to court fetching Irish beauty Nuala McGrail, both are drawn into a tantalizing mystery that stretches back in time, involving several generations of the Coyne family. Using her inexplicable psychic gift, Nuala is determined to discover why the grave of Prohibition-era gangster Jimmy "Sweet Rolls" Sullivan has lain empty for nearly 70 years. The coffin that belonged to Jimmy "Sweet Rolls" Sullivan, who was a rival of Al Capone. But where is Jimmy? Witnesses swear they saw him gunned down by Capone's men during the celebration of his wife's birthday, where his blood stained the cake red. As Dermot and Nuala begin to investigate, they sense their inquisitive foray into the past may have serious consequences threatening their future together.
Irish Whiskey: A Nuala Anne McGrail Novel: ($12.90 from Amazon.Com)
His next food related Irish mystery wasn’t until 2002 with the title, “Irish Stew”. And what a stew it is. Here are some of the ingredients: Our heroine, Nuala Anne McGrail, in her guise as international singing star, accompanied by her spear-carrying husband, Dermot Coyne, is off to a major music festival in Milan, where they meet Seamus Costelloe, a Chicago Irish macher, and his family. Seamus is no better than he should be, and in fact the suspicion is that he's very bad indeed, but softhearted Nuala sees the sign of death on him-she hasn't lost her ability to see into the future-and decides to do something about it. She also sees something good in him. Which leads to a few hair-raising conflicts with some of Chicago's more desperate characters.
Nuala and Dermot's new baby is premature, and dark clouds hover over their sublimely happy marriage. Meanwhile, Dermot is trying to solve the mystery of Chicago's Haymarket riot, which isn't easy since it happened over a hundred years ago.
Only bestselling author Andrew Greeley, with his knowledge of Ireland and Chicago's unsavory politics, plus his uncanny ability to combine two stories-one in the present and one in the past-and his talent for building mystery and suspense to an almost unbearable degree, could have written this truly tantalizing novel.Irish Stew!: ($12.50 from Amazon.Com)
There are 12 books from Father Andrew Greely in the Nuala Anne McGrail series and they definitely won’t fail to satisfy the interest in this genre.
Father Andrew Greeley was quite successful in his writing career though he never set out to do this. He is quoted as saying in an interview for the Chicago Tribune in 1992, "I'm a priest, pure and simple ... The other things I do — sociological research, my newspaper columns, the novels I write — are just my way of being a priest. I decided I wanted to be one when I was a kid growing up on the West Side. I've never wavered or wanted to be anything but.” No matter what his intent was, Greeley was probably the best-selling priest in history, with an estimated 250,000 readers who would buy almost every novel he published, probably generating at least $110 million in gross income by 1999. He lived quite comfortably and gave most of his earnings to charity and the Church.
Greeley was awarded honorary degrees from the University of Arizona, Bard College (New York State) and the National University of Ireland, Galway. In 1981, he received the F. Sadlier Dinger Award, which is presented each year by educational publisher William H. Sadlier, Inc. in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the ministry of religious education in America.
In 2008, Father Andrew Greeley best selling novelist suffered head injuries from a fall after stepping out of a taxi about 3:30 p.m. Friday at a transportation stop in Rosemont, Illinois. A part of his clothing got caught on the door as the driver pulled away, according to published reports in various newspapers.
Greeley, 80, was reported to have fractured his skull and left orbital bone near his eye. Friends reported he suffered internal bleeding in the skull.
Greeley was reportedly leaving a speaking engagement at an academic conference. After this injury, Greeley ceased speaking engagements and writing, only choosing to convalesce and heal in his home. He died five years later in his sleep at the John Hancock Hotel in Chicago Il. at the ripe age of 85.
He was an outspoken man who didn’t pull any punches in stating what he felt needed to be said.
So, it was a bit of Irish in this newsletter. I do apologize for not including the rest of the authors books in this newsletter but I do intend to right things with next month’s newsletter. Till next month, dear readers!
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Mystery: March 29, 2023 Issue [#11883]
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