Now that Sheila Connolly is gone, I follow Carlene O’Connor to Ireland for cozy mysteries. Murder in Connemara is the second Home to Ireland mystery featuring Tara Meehan, an American who followed her family roots home to Galway.

Tara is only waiting for her permit to open Renewals, her architectural salvage shop. So, she has the time to gallivant off to Connemara when someone leaves her a flyer about a small cottage for sale. She falls in love with the cottage, but also finds a little pug whose tag says “Savage” before she finds the body of the dog’s owner. After she reports the body, she thinks that will be her last connection to the victim, Nancy Halligan. Ha!

She was warned. Tara’s Uncle Johnny sees a woman named Rose who reads cards. She told Tara to take the day off. Instead, she went back to Renewals, and was swept up in the plans of an over-the-top heiress who sweeps into the shop. Veronica O’Farrell was always known as the “wild heiress”. Now, she’s been sober for one year, but she doesn’t know that her sponsor, Nancy, has been found dead. Veronica wants to make amends to seven people she hurt. She’s invited all of them to stay at Ballynahinch Castle. And, she wants Tara to source gifts for all those people, gifts that suggest the amends she plans to make. The night before all of Veronica’s plans are to fall in place, she calls Tara. But Veronica has been drinking. When she’s found dead the next day, Tara has that rambling message. And, all of Veronica’s guests are now suspects.

In a cozy mystery, the amateur sleuth always has to have a reason to get involved in the investigation. That’s actually the flimsiest part of this mystery. Although Tara found Nancy’s body, she thinks she has to stay involved with the entire group of suspects because Veronica asked her to find gifts for them. In fact, she hadn’t even started looking for the gifts before Veronica’s death, but she says she was paid, and has to get to know the suspects to find the right gifts. Her Uncle Johnny tries to warn her against getting involved, as does Danny O’Donnell, the man who is “more than a friend, less than a boyfriend”.

What amateur sleuth has ever resisted sticking a nose in where it doesn’t belong? At least in Carlene O’Connor’s mysteries, we get to see the country through the eyes of a newcomer. For me, the visit to Ireland, and Tara’s small group of friends, Uncle Johnny, Rose, and Danny are the highlights of the Home to Ireland mysteries.

Carlene O’Connor’s website is https://www.carleneoconnor.net/

Murder in Connemara by Carlene O’Connor. Kensington, 2020. ISBN 9781496731708 (paperback), 283p.

FTC Full Disclosure – I read a galley from NetGalley.