She Is The Law

The latest in Cora Harrison’s ‘Burren Mysteries’ series is LAWS IN CONFLICT (Severn House), which features the sixteenth century Brehon judge, Mara, and is now available in paperback. Quoth the blurb elves:

February, 1512. Mara, Brehon of the Burren, judge and lawgiver, has been invited to the magnificent city state of Galway, which is ruled by English laws and a royal charter originally granted by Richard III. Mara wonders whether she can use her legal knowledge to save the life of a man from the Burren who has been caught stealing a meat pie, but events soon take an even more dramatic turn when the mayor’s son is charged with a heinous crime. Sure there is more to the case than meets the eye, Mara investigates ...

  Here’s hoping that has whetted your appetite, because there’s another Burren Mysteries novel due later this year, THE CROSS OF VENGEANCE, which sounds utterly fascinating. To wit:

When Mara attends mass at Kilnaboy Church, it is just another duty in her busy life as Brehon of the Burren, responsible for the maintenance of law and order in the kingdom. The church holds an important relic: a piece of the true cross itself, housed inside a round tower and heralded by the huge two-armed stone cross on the church gable. Hence, on this special day, the church is packed with locals, as well as pilgrims from all over Europe. But when fire attacks the tower where the precious relic is housed, and Mara then discovers that one of the pilgrims is a disciple of Martin Luther and a hater of such sacred relics, a Spanish priest threatens the might of the Inquisition and a German traveller takes refuge in the church. However, the next morning, a naked body is found dead, spread-eagled in the shape of a cross, on top of one of the tombs on the hill behind the church. Was it one of the true pilgrims who killed him? Or perhaps the priest of the parish, helped by his grave digger? Or was it even the innkeeper, whose business has been ruined now that the relic, which attracted visitors from all over Europe, has been destroyed? Once again, it is Mara’s task, along with that of her law-school pupils, to investigate and uphold the power of the law ...

  THE CROSS OF VENGEANCE will be published in September. Will it be the novel that finally puts Cora Harrison on the radar of those good people who compile the shortlist for the Irish Crime Novel of the Year? Only time, that notoriously doity rat, will tell …