The Winter Guest

Set in 1921 during the Irish civil war, this fine mystery from Ryan (A House of Ghosts) takes Capt. Thomas Harkin, an IRA intelligence officer, from Dublin to the west coast of Ireland to investigate the murder of the Honorable Maud Prendeville, shot during a raid carried out by Irish Volunteers. Maud, who was Harkin’s former lover, stood with the rebels during the 1916 Easter Uprising, despite her family’s loyalist ties, and it’s unclear to him why the Volunteers would want to kill her. Conducting his investigation from Kilcolgan House, the Prendeville family mansion, Harkin clashes with both a brutal British major commanding the local Auxiliary unit and secretive rebels while struggling with the lingering effects of concussions suffered during the Great War. Kilcolgan House functions as a character in its own right, dark and decaying; at one point Harkin “could swear that the very walls of the room come closer in anticipation, as though the ghosts of the house have gathered around them, listening in.” Ryan further manipulates the atmosphere with mysterious ghostly visions that may have a supernatural origin or may only be the result of Harkins’s post-traumatic stress disorder. Fans of Charles Todd’s Ian Rutledge series will want to check this out. (Oct.)