THE MOUNTAINS WILD

Long Island detective and single mother Maggie D’arcy tracks her missing cousin in a cold case that reaches across Dublin and the Irish countryside.

Maggie studied Irish history and literature at Notre Dame, but her hopes of traveling to find her roots were crushed when her mother died during her junior year. Instead, her feckless cousin, Erin, was the one to set off for Dublin, where she disappeared. Maggie spent the autumn of 1993 tracing her footsteps through pubs and walking trails, questioning everyone from Trinity students to IRA gunrunners. She returned home with nothing but Erin’s distinctive amethyst Claddagh necklace and the determination to become a police officer. Now, 23 years later, the Gardaí ring up Erin’s father, Danny, at his bar. Erin’s scarf has been found near where Maggie found the necklace—and where another young woman has just gone missing. When Uncle Danny pleads with Maggie to go back and see if she can find out what truly happened, Maggie agrees. Fortunately, the detective leading cold cases, Roland Byrne, is the same one who was kind to Maggie during Erin’s initial missing person investigation. He’s followed Maggie’s career, including her vital work stopping a serial killer. Revisiting the files and her old haunts, Maggie realizes that the key to Erin’s disappearance may have been back home all along.

This mystery, evocative of the Irish diaspora, interrogates both a young woman’s disappearance and the meaning of homeland.