Good Red Herring

by Susan Maxwell

Steve Simpson (Cover Designer)

An intriguing murder mystery set in an imaginary world, peopled by vampires, dimorphs, luchrupáns and the odd – very odd – Salmon Farsade, an orphan with the ability to read auras. Salmon becomes apprenticed to Muinbeo’s most famous nocturnal detective, the long-lived and sharp-toothed Inspector McCabe, and together they try to sniff out who killed Fen Maguire – and why. 

‘Hard silver light caught in her dark hair, the moon shadows giving her pointed face a romance it lacked in life. He wedged his nose against the clenched hand under the bent arm, against the blood-soaked earth where her life had finally trickled away. The ghost of wind, which only he could feel, stirred, and he raised his head. Cullen had learned the odour of her dead body, and turned to inhale the story of her death.’

• ISBN13: 9781908195937
• Publish Date: 11 September 2014
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: IE
• Imprint: Little Island
• Format: Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
• Pages: 304
• Language: English

Reviews

[wyvernfriend]

Throughout most of this I wanted to give it 5 stars, but the ending just felt a bit of a let-down in comparison to the rest of the story.

In a world where the Egyptian empire never fell there's a part of Ireland that's only accessible through portals, where aliens, vampires, werewolves and magic co-exist. In this place Salmon Farsade is an orphan with an ability to read auras, she's apprenticed to Inspector McCabe to investigate the murder of Fen Maguire.

It's an interesting world, a world that feels like the undercurrent in Ireland that root of superstition and magic realism that is just under the veneer of modern culture, the one that has golf clubs redesign courses to avoid fairy trees. This could only have been improved by being voiced by Eddie Lenihan and a slightly better ending, it just didn't satisfy me, it felt a bit rushed and not thought through as much as the rest of the story.

I am looking forward to more by this author