In a small town, it’s impossible to hide…

Two decades after she left Ireland, Leah Ryan is back. She knows she won’t get a welcome reception in her hometown of Dungarry, but she’s finally ready to face up to the events that forced her to leave as a teenager.

As she arrives home, another tragedy is waiting for Leah – her first love, Eamon Lonergan, has been found brutally murdered.

At first, Eamon’s murder appears unrelated to Leah’s past. But in a small town like Dungarry, everything is connected and everyone has secrets. Sometimes there’s only one way to ensure the truth stays buried.

A tense and emotional thriller set in Ireland. Perfect for fans of Claire McGowan and Patricia Gibney.

My Review

I love that I was able to read this with my online book club The Pigeonhole, in ten staves, one stave each day for ten days. It meant that my fellow pigeons (as we call ourselves) and I could try and work out whodunnit.

Basically, Leah Ryan (a successful lawyer in Australia) returns home to Ireland after 18 years, just at the time – coincidentally – when her ex-boyfriend and twin brother of her best friend Aisling is brutally murdered. Aisling is pregnant with partner Jim’s baby. So far so good.

However, Leah’s mum Mary was knocked down by an unknown hit-and-run driver and left with severe disabilities, and while Leah ran away, her older brother Frank had to remain in Dungarry to look after her. That was basically the end of his life’s ambition.

But peddle back a bit and 15-year-old Leah has ditched Aisling to be ‘besties’ with Coco, a jealous, manipulative witch, who has just moved from Dublin with her mother Isabelle (another jealous, manipulative witch). So when Leah ditches Coco for Eamon, Coco gets very annoyed. Isabelle’s boyfriend Seamus is a sleazebag, with a penchant for groping teenage girls, but he disappears one day. Was it him who knocked down Mary Ryan?

Finally we have Tom Lonergan, father of Aisling and Eamon, who is in love with Isabelle. Everyone has secrets and they are all lying (well almost all).

So who killed Eamon? It was great fun trying to work it out! I really loved it, even though most of the characters are quite horrible, including Leah, though we forgave her behaviour as being typical of a selfish teenager. Not sure the same could be said of Coco.

Many thanks to The Pigeonhole, the author, and my fellow Pigeons for making this such an enjoyable read.

About the Author

Sheila Bugler is the author of the Ellen Kelly and Dee Doran crime novels. Her first stand alone novel, The Lucky Eight, was published in July 2021.

She grew up in a small town in the west of Ireland. After studying Psychology at University College Galway, she left Ireland and worked in Italy, Spain, Germany, Holland, Argentina and London before finally settling in Eastbourne, where she now lives with her husband, Sean, and their two children.