Cora Harrison

The sudden death of a young novice nun raises a series of puzzling questions in the latest Reverend Mother historical mystery. The Reverend Mother is delighted with her new entrant to the convent. Young Sister Gertrude is well-educated, has worked for an accountant and has an appealing sense of humor. But one autumn morning, Sister Gertrude is found dead inside a small wooden shed, just beside the river. Surely a young nun could not die from alcohol...

The Reverend Mother receives a decidedly gruesome gift in this compelling Irish historical mystery. Ireland. 1925. Like all who seek charitable contributions, Reverend Mother Aquinas is used to being gifted some fairly dubious items. But nothing like this. On opening the evil-smelling trunk, labelled 'old books', the Reverend Mother is horrified to discover it contains the dead body of one of Cork's richest merchants, wrapped in decomposing animal...

When Mara, Brehon of the Burren, is summoned to the sandy beach of Fanore, on the western fringe of the kingdom of the Burren, she sees a sight that she has never witnessed before during her thirty years as law-enforcer and investigating magistrate: a dead man lying in a boat with no oars. Immediately her scholars jump to the conclusion that the man has been found guilty of kin-murder. The Brehon sentence for this worst of all crimes is that the murderer...

'To shoot a man on the spur of the moment in the presence of the king and his court, not to mention the cardinal and his household, that took a boldness ... Or utter despair.' HAMPTON COURT, 1522. Lawyer Hugh Mac Egan has arrived from Ireland to draw up the marriage contract between James Butler, son of his employer the Earl of Ormond, and Anne Boleyn - a dynastic alliance that will resolve an age-old inheritance dispute. But Anne, it seems, has...

"Despite its regal name, the Queen's Old Castle is nothing but a low-grade department store, housed within the decrepit walls of what was once a medieval castle, built at the harbour entrance to Cork city. On her first visit for fifty years, the Reverend Mother is struck by how little has changed - apart, that is, from the strange smell of gas .. But when the store's owner staggers from his office and topples over the railings to his death, Mother...

"Ireland. 1925. Pierced through to the brain, the dead body of the priest was found wedged into the small, dark confessional cubicle. Loved by all, Father Dominic had lent a listening ear to sinners of all kinds: gunmen and policemen; prostitutes and nuns; prosperous businessmen and petty swindlers; tradesmen and thieves. But who knelt behind the metal grid and inserted a deadly weapon into that listening ear? The Reverend Mother Aquinas can do nothing...

The peaceful atmosphere of the Reverend Mother's annual retreat is shattered by sudden, violent death in this gripping historical mystery. 1920s. Cork, Ireland. The Reverend Mother regrets the bishop's decision to invite the five candidates for the position of Alderman of the City Council to join them for their annual retreat. Constantly accosted by ambitious, would-be politicians hoping to secure the bishop's backing, she's finding the week-long...

Mara, the Burren's Brehon Judge, must investigate the death of the MacNamara clan steward, who just raised the cost of tribute before his death, and a possible link to an alleged suicide that happens days later.

The year is 1509 and autumn has come to western Ireland. When Mara attends the funeral of a local priest, the last thing she expects to discover is a corpse on the church steps. As Mara investigates, she is determined to bring a killer to justice.