{"id":6188,"date":"2025-01-28T08:42:19","date_gmt":"2025-01-28T16:42:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=6188"},"modified":"2025-01-28T08:42:19","modified_gmt":"2025-01-28T16:42:19","slug":"r-p-odonnell-no-comfort-for-the-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/r-p-odonnell-no-comfort-for-the-dead\/","title":{"rendered":"R.P. O’Donnell: No Comfort for the Dead"},"content":{"rendered":"

Castlefreke #1<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Welcome to my first book crush of the new year.\u00a0 It\u2019s set in the late 80s, as tiny Castlefreke in County Cork, Ireland, experiences a shrinkage as jobs and inhabitants flee for bigger towns and more opportunity. Swimming against that tide is central character Emma, the town librarian, who has returned home to live with her dad, Sam, after her dream career in the Garda didn\u2019t work out.\u00a0 After one of Sam\u2019s frequent nags about moving on, Emma takes off and ends up at the \u201cBig House\u201d in town. There she hears shots, witnesses a man fleeing, and finds the reclusive owner dead and another unknown man injured, then takes off to the town doctor to summon help.<\/p>\n

So far, so cozy.\u00a0 But what makes one book sing a little more than another, very similar book?\u00a0 There are many factors, one of them being prose, and O\u2019Donnell writes with a loveliness that\u2019s both sturdy and delicate, framing the story with a huge, destructive storm named Ophelia and weaving sightings of foxes and bats throughout.\u00a0 Foxes can symbolize many things, but one is \u201cwild loveliness\u201d and another is \u201cmischief,\u201d both of which apply here, while bats can be seen as a symbol of change and rebirth. And there is indeed some serious change rumbling toward tiny Castlefreke, coming like a freight train, and Ophelia and the murder in the Big House are the kick off.<\/p>\n

Symbolism is all well and good, but another crucial element that makes a book sing is character, and O\u2019Donnell appears to understand and portray it masterfully.\u00a0 Emma loves her library but regrets not only her change in career, but the absence of her long ago hometown honey, Charley.\u00a0 But when the identity of the other man who was shot is revealed, it brings the very same Charley back to town.\u00a0 We are there with Emma as she travels back through childhood to young adulthood, revisiting the relationships she\u2019s had with her Dad and Charley, as well as the other central characters in the story.<\/p>\n

When the injured man\u2019s father asks Emma to use the skills she\u2019s learned in the Garda to investigate and clear his son, she steps up.\u00a0 She tries to be guided by Sherlock Holmes, but she realizes the details she notices are not as complex as his.\u00a0 What works for her is knowing everyone in town, including the somewhat skeezy police sergeant Noonan and a local lawyer who seems to operate on not quite the right side of the law.\u00a0 But it\u2019s not until Emma teams up with the lawyer\u2019s secretary, the lonely yet observant and quietly funny Mary, that the investigation really takes off.<\/p>\n

There is another pretty heartbreaking death and a dollop of danger for Emma, but she\u2019s surrounded by community and loved ones, and that gives her investigation a boost.\u00a0 I never worried that things wouldn\u2019t be set to rights \u2013 a cozy\/traditional element \u2013 but the sensitive writing, character detail and lovely setting for this novel make it a complete standout. I read it with a lump in my throat. This is a spectacular debut. —\u00a0Robin Agnew<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Castlefreke #1 Welcome to my first book crush of the new year.\u00a0 It\u2019s set in the late 80s, as tiny Castlefreke in County Cork, Ireland, experiences a shrinkage as jobs and inhabitants flee for bigger towns and more opportunity. Swimming against that tide is central character Emma, the town librarian, who has returned home to … 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":[1959,1958,943,1218,355,1651,1960,1957],"class_list":["post-6188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-1980s","tag-castlefreke","tag-crooked-lane-books","tag-debut","tag-ireland","tag-librarians","tag-no-comfort-for-the-dead","tag-r-p-odonnell"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6188","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=6188"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6188\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6190,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6188\/revisions\/6190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}