Mags Munroe Books
My twelve-year-old daughter frequently moans that Ballycarrick is the most boring town in Ireland. Nothing ever happens here. She’s right. And as the local police sergeant, this is something I’m delighted about. I’ve enough to worry about - the polar ice-caps, the evil monster that’s shrinking my trousers, not to mention the hot flushes - without having to be like one of those gritty Netflix cops, chasing criminals down alleyways and busting drug deals. So, life is calm and fairly predictable. Until something unthinkable happens in our sleepy backwater. A crime, but not like anything I've ever seen before. It's a complete mystery. And it's up to me to solve it.
If you want to disappear, start again, make a new life, a small Irish village is probably not the wisest place to go, since anonymity is not something we do well here. The arrival of someone new is always a cause for twitching curtains and whispered conversations. But here, like everywhere, people have their secrets, and as the local sergeant I’m expected to have my eyes peeled for anything unusual. And I do. Usually. Until I don’t, and the consequences are potentially fatal.
There are some days when being the Garda Sergeant of a small Irish town really tests me. Having to police my family and friends is a necessary evil, but when I’m faced with arresting half the children in the town, and discovering someone close to me among the offenders, well, those days I really wish I’d chosen a different career. Irate parents are not my only problem unfortunately, as I’m then called to manage a baying mob of strangers, bearing placards and demanding change. I’m all for peaceful protest, but these people were threatening the vulnerable, and I’m just not having that. So, after a very long week, I just want to go home and put my feet up, when a dramatic, decades-old secret is revealed. It shocks everyone in the family to the core, and it feels like everywhere I turn, where once there was trust and honesty, now there are nothing but lies. I usually know what to do for the best, but faced with this, I’m unsure. Should I trust my instincts and bend the rules, or should I apply the law to the letter?
Mags Munroe is juggling a lot. A Gen Z new Garda recruit who lectures everyone on political correctness, teenage daughters who are determined to fill the house with unruly animals, a mother-in-law that is not improving with age, and a husband with a loud new hobby. So, when an eccentric old couple move to Ballycarrick, claiming to be a witch and a warlock, she thinks why not? What harm could they do? But their presence is fascinating some and infuriating others, and both sides want her involved. Her husband’s old girlfriend is back in town, and the rumour mill starts turning, and relationships Mags has relied on all her life seem suddenly precarious. Just when she's at boiling point, she finds herself faced with a professional situation so unlikely it’s almost laughable, but as things unfold, what seemed like a joke is no longer funny, as sinister influences take a keen interest in Ballycarrick, but why?
In the quirky Irish town of Ballycarrick, Sergeant Mags Munroe is busy. When Chance Your Arm, an internationally acclaimed showjumper, mysteriously vanishes and a troubled celebrity seeks refuge in a luxury Irish castle, Mags finds herself reluctantly drawn into two high-profile cases. As well as crime investigation, she must manage feuding families, a leaky church roof and the dreadful D.I. Duckie Cassidy. As the cases unfold, Mags uncovers a web of secrets and deceptions that shake her understanding of the town she thought she knew. Joining forces with Conor O'Shea, the handsome, kind and astute owner of Castle Dysert, Mags combines their considerable skills. With wit, determination, and a knack for uncovering the truth, can Mags solve these seemingly unrelated cases? This delightful Irish cosy mystery will have you laughing, guessing, and cheering for the irrepressible Sergeant Munroe and her charming ally.