{"id":5300,"date":"2023-10-17T06:19:24","date_gmt":"2023-10-17T13:19:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=5300"},"modified":"2023-10-17T06:19:24","modified_gmt":"2023-10-17T13:19:24","slug":"carlene-oconnor-some-of-us-are-looking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/carlene-oconnor-some-of-us-are-looking\/","title":{"rendered":"Carlene O’Connor: Some of Us Are Looking"},"content":{"rendered":"

County Kerry #2<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The follow up to O\u2019Connor\u2019s County Kerry series debut, No Strangers Here, <\/em>avoids any tinge of sophomore slump. Her thoughtful, well plotted, richly charactered series is set in tiny Dingle, Ireland.\u00a0 The series heroine, Dimpna Wilde, is a vet whose work insinuates itself into the plots in the best possible way.\u00a0 Not only does her work temper some of the gruesomeness O\u2019Connor writes about, it also grounds Dimpna in the community.\u00a0 As the book opens she\u2019s been called to the scene of a hit and run \u2013 there\u2019s a baby fox trapped under the body, and the mother fox is giving all the emergency workers on the scene a death stare.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the initial set up. The next thing: Dimpna discovers the dead body of a beautiful young woman who had been living in a trailer in a car park, gruesomely murdered.\u00a0 While the young woman appears to have been problematic, the disruption she\u2019s caused to the Dingle community is not worthy of death, and her murder looks like the work of a particularly sick mind.<\/p>\n

Because of an indiscretion, the other series mainstay, Detective Inspector Cormac O\u2019Brien, is kept to the sidelines of the case.\u00a0 He\u2019s also mourning the very recent death of his mother. O\u2019Brien is still working the case, however, with his Sergeant, Barbara Neely.\u00a0 While O\u2019Brien is new to Dingle, Neely is a local.\u00a0 That sets the stage.\u00a0 The detectives are trying to untangle a case that seems drenched in myth (of the creepiest sort) and there are outbreaks of a 1944 story of a dead girl in a Wych Elm all over town.<\/p>\n

The dead woman\u2019s trailer mates (or the purposes of this novel, caravan mates) are confused, angry, and grieving, all at once.\u00a0 Their dogs and a parrot belonging to one of them have been confiscated and they are hindering rather than helping the investigation into the death of their friend.\u00a0 They are the noise and distraction on top of a complicated puzzle.<\/p>\n

Some of the puzzle involves animals, especially the fox, and that brings Dimpna into the picture.\u00a0 She and Detective O\u2019Brien have also struck up a very new friendship and possibly something more.\u00a0 The layers of character and behavior in this novel are sensitively drawn and feel true as the author creates portraits of real humans with messy lives who are nevertheless trying to do the right thing.<\/p>\n

The mystery part is also well handled, which is no surprise, as O\u2019Connor is a veteran with over a dozen books to her credit.\u00a0 What surprised me with the first book is that most of her work has been straight up cozy.\u00a0 These novels aren\u2019t cozy.\u00a0 While they don\u2019t wallow in darkness, they also don\u2019t avoid complex issues which in this book include a past rape, the death of a parent, a parent with dementia, and the inevitable trouble that comes from murder.<\/p>\n

The ultimate ending of the book, however, is mostly optimistic.\u00a0 There\u2019s a belief in the ultimate strength of the human spirit. Dimpna herself is a wonderful personality, and I love the parts that take her to her veterinary practice.\u00a0 As I finished the novel, I completed, in my head, the title of the book: \u201cSome of us are looking at the stars.\u201d\u00a0 Complicated, intelligent, and well written \u2013 I hope this series is around for a long time. —\u00a0Robin Agnew<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

County Kerry #2 The follow up to O\u2019Connor\u2019s County Kerry series debut, No Strangers Here, avoids any tinge of sophomore slump. Her thoughtful, well plotted, richly charactered series is set in tiny Dingle, Ireland.\u00a0 The series heroine, Dimpna Wilde, is a vet whose work insinuates itself into the plots in the best possible way.\u00a0 Not … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[932,1402,251,1403,355,162,1276,1401,68,934],"class_list":["post-5300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-carlene-oconnor","tag-county-kerry","tag-dogs","tag-foxes","tag-ireland","tag-kensington-books","tag-robin-agnew","tag-some-of-us-are-looking","tag-traditional-mystery","tag-veterinarian"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5300"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5300\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5301,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5300\/revisions\/5301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}