MURDER IN AN IRISH GARDEN

A garden competition turns deadly in a bustling Irish village.

All of Kilbane is buzzing with excitement, and not only because of the chainsaws and drills working to get ready for the opening of The Six, the new restaurant Eoin O’Sullivan named for himself and his five siblings. The first day of Kilbane’s Top Garden Contest is upon the town, and the contestants are rushing to finish their creations, each of them hidden from eager eyes by a white tent. There’s been no end of fuss about whether one of the contestants, professional garden designer Cassidy Ryan, should be allowed to compete in what’s always been an amateur event. Now it’s time to reveal whether Cassidy’s creation can live up to the hype. Well, “live up to” turns out to be exactly wrong, since the centerpiece of Cassidy’s garden turns out to be her own decapitated body. Garda Siobhán O’Sullivan and her handsome husband, DS Macdara Flannery, focus their investigation of Cassidy’s demise on her fellow contestants, with a reporter, her fiance, a bookstore clerk, and the owner of a garden supply shop playing supporting roles. This narrow lens fails to do Kilbane justice. From the beginning, O’Connor shows an eye for the quirky pleasures of Irish country life, but she fails to capitalize on her own sharp vision, wasting her opportunity to make Kilbane a joy to her reader in order to plant a bouquet of red herrings in the service of a silly solution to the puzzle.

More local color, please.