Buried in a Bog

Sheila Connolly takes her readers on a wonderful trip to County Cork Ireland in this first in a series cozy mystery.  Maura Donovan finds her self in Ireland quite suddenly at the last request of her Grandmother.   She lands there and is taken care of quite readily by all the strangers in town-  they knew her grandmother or someone else in their family did.  Maura isn't quite sure what to think of the Irish hospitality after growing up in South Boston.   She quickly becomes immersed in the town life and drama as she gets mixed in the middle of a murder investigation.

Through the story we read lots of descriptions of the Irish countryside surrounding Leap.  It is very easy to visualize yourself there and to experience the quaint charm of the country and the people.  I had the fortune of visiting Ireland this past fall during a cruise.  We visited Cork and Dublin as well as Belfast in Northern Ireland.  I would love to return and go on a driving vacation of the country to explore it in more depth.

Connolly also did a great job of intertwining the history of the Irish and the British as it pertained to the land ownership.   It was a nice explanation of what is a portion of what was behind the desire for the Irish to separate from England.  She does not put a political opinion on her description, just a factual account from the perspective of an Irishman.

All in all I really enjoyed the book and look forward to reading more in this series.  All in all there appear to be 9 books in this series.

The next book up is Scandal in Skibbereen









Buried in a Bog by Sheila Connolly
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Very enjoyable cozy mystery set in Leap in County Cork Ireland. Connolly does a wonderful job of mixing action/suspense with beautiful descriptions of the Irish countryside and people. There are bits of coincidence that are a little too convenient within the story but then again it's Ireland and lots of people are related as distant cousins there.

If you would like an enjoyable cozy without any romance while visiting the Irish countryside this is the book for you.


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Challenge Prompts

The Challenge Prompts I will use this for are:

1. Library Love  #LibraryLoveChallenge -  Book 53
2. Cravings for a Cozy and Cloak and  Dagger #CloakDaggerChal : Book  41
3. Cruising through cozies -  8-  Travel cozy
4. Medical Examiner-  2 Toe Tag 
5. Six Shooter-  1 shot for Sheila Connolly
6. Mystery Bingo: 
   • Weapons card :  Rock or brick
7. TBR Book #32  #Backlistreader ; #MountTBR2020; #StartOnYourShelfathon