A wedding in a castle. A village full of suspects. And a groom's stepfather nobody is going to miss.
When Sinead Long's cousin Amelia announces she is getting married at The Castle in June, the whole of Cloncastle decides it is the best news of the year. Sinead is making the cake. Three tiers, lace copied off the bodice of the dress, and a little sugar bird on the top.
Then the groom's family land a day early.
Harlan Whitlock III has money, a tan, and an opinion on everything from the hotel to the flowers to the size of the front lawn, and he is not one bit shy about sharing any of them. By Saturday morning he has insulted the photographer, the wedding planner and the bride's mother, and there is hardly a soul in the parish who would cross the road to help him.
That night, somewhere between the speeches and the last waltz, somebody stops him for good.
The guards arrive before the band has finished the song. Detective Inspector Byrne arrives soon after, and does what Byrne always does, which is decide early and decide wrong. Sinead knows the woman he is looking at did not do it. She also knows that nearly two hundred people were at that wedding, and that every one of them saw something, and not one of them saw anything.
Between orders in the bakery and a cake that never got eaten, Sinead starts asking the sort of questions a woman with flour on her hands can get away with asking. What she turns up is older than the wedding, older than the marriage, and a good deal closer to home than anyone in that marquee could have guessed.
Because in Cloncastle, the person nobody looks at twice is usually the one holding the answer.
A Woeful Wedding is the fifth Quay Road Mystery. Tea, cake, gossip and murder in a small Irish village, with no gore and no bad language. Can be read on its own or as part of the series.
Genre: Mystery
When Sinead Long's cousin Amelia announces she is getting married at The Castle in June, the whole of Cloncastle decides it is the best news of the year. Sinead is making the cake. Three tiers, lace copied off the bodice of the dress, and a little sugar bird on the top.
Then the groom's family land a day early.
Harlan Whitlock III has money, a tan, and an opinion on everything from the hotel to the flowers to the size of the front lawn, and he is not one bit shy about sharing any of them. By Saturday morning he has insulted the photographer, the wedding planner and the bride's mother, and there is hardly a soul in the parish who would cross the road to help him.
That night, somewhere between the speeches and the last waltz, somebody stops him for good.
The guards arrive before the band has finished the song. Detective Inspector Byrne arrives soon after, and does what Byrne always does, which is decide early and decide wrong. Sinead knows the woman he is looking at did not do it. She also knows that nearly two hundred people were at that wedding, and that every one of them saw something, and not one of them saw anything.
Between orders in the bakery and a cake that never got eaten, Sinead starts asking the sort of questions a woman with flour on her hands can get away with asking. What she turns up is older than the wedding, older than the marriage, and a good deal closer to home than anyone in that marquee could have guessed.
Because in Cloncastle, the person nobody looks at twice is usually the one holding the answer.
A Woeful Wedding is the fifth Quay Road Mystery. Tea, cake, gossip and murder in a small Irish village, with no gore and no bad language. Can be read on its own or as part of the series.
Genre: Mystery
Used availability for Siobhan Purcell's A Woeful Wedding