
Inheriting a Galway cottage may change a troubled woman’s life—but not the way she hopes—in this thriller from an “original, grimly hilarious” author (The Washington Post). Kate Mitchell’s in the process of kicking her heroin addiction—with the help of alcohol—when a letter arrives informing her that her aunt in Ireland has passed away and bequeathed her a home near the ocean. This could be the start of a new and better life for Kate, far away from Brooklyn, where she and her surviving brothers are each struggling with their own dark pasts. But Aunt Mary didn’t die peacefully—quite the opposite. The pair of thugs responsible for her murder had plans for her house: namely, turning it into a lovely seaside meth lab. One of Mary’s killers, however, finds his focus shifting when he spots a photo of the dead woman’s American niece, who bears a striking resemblance to the late opera singer Maria Callas, the beloved object of his obsession. When Kate and her brothers arrive to claim her inheritance, they’re going to find something other than a piece of paradise . . . “Nobody writes like Ken Bruen, with his ear for lilting Irish prose and his taste for the kind of gallows humor heard only at the foot of the gallows.” —The New York Times “Bruen has a rich and mordant writing style, full of offbeat humor.” —Publishers Weekly
Author

Ken Bruen, born in Galway in 1951, is the author of The Guards (2001), the highly acclaimed first Jack Taylor novel. He spent twenty-five years as an English teacher in Africa, Japan, S.E. Asia and South America. His novel Her Last Call to Louis Mac Niece (1997) is in production for Pilgrim Pictures, his "White Trilogy" has been bought by Channel 4, and The Guards is to be filmed in Ireland by De Facto Films. He has won Two Shamus awards by Private Eye Writers of America for the best detective fiction genre novel of the year for The Guards(2004) and The Dramatist(2007). He has also received The Best series Award in February 2007 for the Jack Taylor novels from The Crime Writers Association