SMOKE IN THE WIND

Irish sleuth, lawyer, and religieuse Sister Fidelma is presented with a landlocked seventh-century variation on the Bermuda Triangle in her eleventh outing (Our Lady of Darkness, 2002, etc.).

Once Fidelma and her stalwart companion Brother Eadulf land in ancient Wales, on a peninsula known as Menevia, Moniu, and doubtless other ancient names, Gwylyddien, the King of Dyfed, naturally appeals to her to investigate the mysterious disappearance of an entire religious community, the abbey of Llanpadern, comprising 27 brothers including Rhun, Gwylyddien’s eldest son. The entire place has been deserted with no obvious signs of violence. Coincidentally, Brother Muerig, Fidelma’s Welsh legal counterpart, is on his way to the neighboring township of Llanwnda—Fidelma stumbles over the pronunciation of this word, in a rare lexicographical lapse that amounts to an epiphany of character in Tremayne’s heavy hands—to investigate the murder and rape of a young girl. Fidelma and Eadulf accompany Muerig to Llanwnda, where the trio arrives just in time to foil the lynching of Idwal, a simple-minded young shepherd whom the townspeople are convinced is guilty. Fidelma solves both the murder and the brothers’ disappearance, but not before Saxon raiders and Welsh outlaws contribute to the general confusion.

Ancient Celtic dictionary entries and legal aphorisms masquerade as dialogue in a novel whose whodunit is less interesting than how-do-you-pronounce-it.