The Eloquence of the Dead

In Brady’s stellar second whodunit set in Victorian Dublin (after 2015’s A June of Ordinary Murders), the police have reason to think something’s amiss at the home of pawnbroker Ambrose Pollock after a constable sees his sister, Phoebe, returning drunk to the Pollock residence late one night. The next morning, the police break into Ambrose’s ground-floor shop, where they find him sitting in his customary chair with his head beaten in. There’s no sign of Phoebe, who becomes the chief suspect in her brother’s murder. Det. Sgt. Joe Swallow, who has a track record of cracking tough cases (but without getting the promotions his successes merit), investigates. Meanwhile, Lady Margaret Gessel is forced to sell her estate under a new law designed to pacify the Irish by making the less-well-off property owners. Lady Margaret’s plight is clearly somehow connected to the violence, but Brady delays the reveal for maximum impact. The astute Swallow is a particularly well-rounded lead, and he’s matched with a complex, but logical, page-turner of a plot. [em](Mar.) [/em]