Irish-American Books

Girls of Many Lands books completes my set. This is a wonderful story for girls of all ages. I have 5 granddaughters and they all read this series. Highly recommended.

This is definetly one of my favorite books! More than anything, I want to be an Irish Step Dancer, but, like Kathleen, don't have the means to acheive that dream. Kathleen helped inspire me to give that dream all I have, and, even if I don't make it, I will have given it my best and that's really all that matters. I reccomend this book highly for girls as young as 10. Awseome book!

I love anything to do with Irish dance (I'm an Irish dancer) so this book was especially great to me, but it would have been a wonderful, historic story no matter who was reading it, and I give it five stars. A wonderful, inspiring story!

Kathleen, a twelve year old Dublin girl, is living among a struggling family in the early depression. When she shows up late to her strict, Catholic school a few to many times, the nuns suggest she enroll in Irish dance lessons in order to keep out of trouble. Upon the first lesson, she finds that she loves Irish dancing--and has a talent for it. The only problem is, her family has many financial problems, which ends the dream that never was.
Kathleen does not give up hope. When she is chosen to represent her class in a competition, she is thrilled, but finds herself in need of a miracle. With her mother's declining health and her family's lack of money, all she can do is pray for a miracle.
Beautifully written, and a very sweet addition to the Girls of Many Lands series.

Do you like books about different places and the people who live there?This book is about a girl named Kathleen who lives in Ireland.I think that it is a good book,becouse it teaches you about how you should never give up on something.I realy liked it and would give it a four star rating.It tells you how her life is and gives you an idea about how life might be growing up in Ireland.I think that the book Kathleen/The Celtic Knot is one of the best books I've ever read!

This is the fifth in the Owen Parry civil war series based on the duties of Abel Jones. The book was hard to put down, characters well defined and the plot great to the end. I look forward to the next book in line.

keeps you interested . You can not wait for the next book to be published in this series.

Owen Parry's "Rebels of Babylon", an "Abel Jones" Civil War mystery novel, is a slam-bang pageturner, with an opening sequence worthy of Indiana Jones. Owen Parry's characters may tend to be rather larger than life, not exactly fully-realized and three-dimensional, although he constructs an exciting plot against a vivid but nonetheless authentic background. Unlike so many "historical" novelists, Parry does not create a tale set in a thinly-disguised modern world. The situations and characters in his novels are genuinely from the mid-Nineteenth century. Abel Jones, a Welsh-born veteran of Britain's wars in India and now a Union officer, disabled from further field service by an injury suffered at First Bull Run, is a reluctant but not wholly untalented detective in the services of the Lincoln Administration, dragged into investigating politcally sensitive crimes. This later adventure brings him to exotic New Orleans, once again in Union hands. Jones is a stiff-necked, moralizing Methodist who is hard on those who do not live up to his high standards (but, to be fair, he is equally hard on himself) and much of the humor in the books stems from juxtaposing Jones's self-perception against reality. Jones is true to his times, filled with the prejudices and assumptions of his class. He is not a terribly genial companion, perhaps, but he is admirable for his dedication and integrity.

I think it best to read the Abel Jones novels in published order (the first was "Faded Coat of Blue"), as Jones's life does evolve over the course of the series and eventually characters from earlier volumes do reappear and passing references are made to past adventures.

If you're one of those folks who thinks reading just "ain't real enough" life for you, and you fill your days and nights with wheel barrel haulin' of half decayed tree bark and wormy soil to make yourself feel useful to God and country. Well then I feel mighty sorry for you. You are missing out on one of the true treasures of Americana by not reading Owen Parry's mystery novels of the "War of Noth'ron Aggression"; the master of the genre. I'm not going into a synopsis of the novel, that's already done here times over, but suffice it to say the book put a big smile on my face as I clutched it to my bosom after each session of reading. Parry's other novels were wonders, especially "Call Each River Jordan", but this latest will have you marveling over each sentence like it's a snifter of Highland Scotch after a morning in the pews with "polite society". Such clever goodness from the sad dark of the Civil War. Thank you Owen Parry. I sweep off my dusty brimmed hat, bowing in antique gestures to your fabulous skills and joyous imaginings with English words and letters. Sheer genius.

Usual Owen Parry protagonist Abel Jones finds himself in war ravaged 1863 New Orleans investigating a murder. Jones, a major in the Union Army has been commissioned by none other than President Lincoln and Secretary of State Seward to unravel the mystery of the death of young abolitionist Susan Peabody. Peabody's father was a powerful Northern industrialist with immense political clout and therfore worthy of placation.

Jones was stonewalled in his inquest due to the wide variety of beliefs exhibited by the denizens of New Orleans including formerly prominent citizens and newly freed slaves. The tenets of voodoo were prevalent and the Negro and Creole populations were leary of Union soldiers. Jones received much needed assistance from a former compatriot and ex-haberdasher Barnaby B. Barnaby a colorful character able to gain entrance into enclaves tabooed to Jones. Barnaby's dearly departed wife was of mixed heritage and this enabled him to be accepted by all levels of society.

Jones and Barnaby painstakingly amassed enough evidence to uncover a plot that distorted abolitionist Peabody's idea to return the freed slaves, by ship, back to their roots in Africa. The guilty parties not only stole the $150,000 earmarked for her plan but actually gathered up the freed slaves and sold them back into slavery in Spanish held territories.

Parry's descriptive narration of the tumultuous setting that existed during the war in New Orleans greatly aids in this appealing historical fictitious offering. Parry populated his fiction with a wide array of interesting characters representative of all walks of life, as Jones tries to make sense of all that he discovers.

I read this book sometime ago and was thrilled and captivated by it! I could not put it down. It was so unusual and so interesting - a view point of the Chinese by a Scotsman (who worked as a spy for the Indian army that he loved and respected, in addition to climbing the treacherous Gurla Mandhata, which had been his lifelong mountaineering ambition as a member of the Scottish Himalayan Club) who suffered being captured, imprisoned and tortured by them. All of this and subtly funny throughout! I could not put the book down until I had finished reading all of it! Tellingly, this adventure cured the author of his mountaineering passion.

I highly for recommend it as a movie worth producing by Hollywood or Bollywood - within the next 5 years. I predict that this will be a blockbuster unlike any other!

This is the best book I have ever read, on any topic. My husband and I had to move to a new house with two extra bedrooms and a finished basement - just so we could accomodate all our books. So I don't say lightly that this is the best book I have ever read.

This is a great survival story, but, more than that, it is an amazing human drama. Other reviewers have done an excellent job of describing the plot, so I'll just say that Sydney Wignall's writing is clear, detailed, and emotionally charged. This book is amazingly powerful.

Read this book!

A truly amazing story with right dosage of travelogue, high altitude mountaineering, History of India, Nepal, China & Tibet's along with the behind the scenes patriotism of Indian army and of self centered Nehru & Menon. A must read for who truly believe in the cause of Tibet's Liberation!

As a Indian I was naturaly drawn to read an account of a brit mountaineer who was engaged in a spying operation for the Indian army...

The feat of endurance is graphically elucidated by the author and is replete with descriptions of the freezing cold and the hardy spirit of the mountain people

This book goes into the period just after the Chinese 'liberation' of Tibet and the war with India due to their land grabbing.
The author has written out of personal experience, and his lack of writing skills must be excused. Sometimes the narrative might get kinda boring, but the work has to be read as a historical gem rather than an interesting story.
Goes into good detail about the crimes committed by the Chinese against the Tibetans.
A very good read.

If you are tired of multiple murders instead of plot this is just the book for you! Well drawn characters, excellent understanding of the era and the place -- (1890's Greenwich Village). The main character is delightful, although she gets away with much more than most women in the era would have.

Have read several others of this series and enjoyed them all. Not alot of redrawing of characters in each new book.

A good quick read... The mystery is reasonably ploted out, although the who in the who done it could have appeared more often...

Delicious mind candy

The second installment of the Molly Murphy mysteries adds a few more supporting characters. My favorites were Sid and Gus, a couple that ends up befriending Molly. They are intellectuals, which is the just the scene Molly wants to immerse herself in. As for Daniel Sullivan, Molly's love interest, he is not so prominent in this book. While it is apparent that she and Daniel are in love, Molly uncovers an unfortunate fact about Daniel's past.

I love Molly's spunky character and her determination to start a detective agency. She also does not comprimise her morals or dreams for anyone. I actually enjoyed the character of Paddy Riley, but he is murdered in the first few chapters of the book. I think Riley would have made an excellent mentor for Molly, and he was funny to boot. I hope Sid and Gus will stay around.

I have read all of these books and love them. I hope there will be a new one to read soon. The author Rhys Bowen has an excellent style of writing.

Rhys has managed to put together another well-written, original mystery, featuring Molly Murphy, an immigrant from Ireland in New York. After helping the police find a murderer, Molly decides that investigation is the field for her. She badgers Paddy Riley into taking her on as his apprentice in his detective agency. Paddy insists that this was no job for a woman, but lets Molly clean and organize his office. Until she walks in on Paddy's murderer.

Molly, unsatisfied with the police investigation into her mentor's death, decides to find the man who killed Paddy and attacked her. The story unfolds with Molly's new experiences in New York, her new friends, and her tenacity to investigate. The beginning of the story seemed to take a while to come together, but once it did, I couldn't put it down.

Now on to: For the Love of Mike!

Death of Riley by Rhys Bowen is the second book in the Molly Murphy mystery series. Molly is an unusual detective: she has few detecting skills, she tends to get herself into deadly situations, and she rarely thinks before she acts. All of these characteristics of course make for interesting reading. Molly approaches private detective Paddy Riley and asks him for a job. Shortly after starting as his secretary, she finds Riley dead at his desk and determines to find his killer when the police won't. Her romance with Danny hits the skids, but she makes some new friends in Greenwich Village in her search for Riley's killer. I really enjoyed most of the book, but the involvement of real historical people and a presidential assassination strained the credibility of the book for me.

Thomas Kelly builds a fantastic story in Empire Rising. From the start, let me say Kelly is on par with Steinbeck when it comes to capturing not only the essence but also the sweep of an era.

This is a story that takes place in the shadow of the construction of the Emprie State Building. The main characters are recent Irish immigrants. One, Michael Briody, has a terrorist past and he struggles to put that behind him as he works as an ironworker. Grace Masterson has her own crooked dealings, including her relationship with a Tammany Hall boss. Then there are the other characters, from Mayor Jimmy Walker to union bosses and thugs galore, including the hint that the Italian mafia may be growing more powerful than the Irish gangs.

The pot boils as these people claw their way through the depression and the struggles of a corrupted political system that may work better than anyone realizes. The best part about this book is Kelly's ability to put the reader into the City, into the jobs these people do, and into the mood of the time. You're right there, praying it works out. Like reality, Kelly gives the good with the bad, something I always enjoy about great fiction.

Hop aboard as Thomas Kelly rolls out another Big Apple white-knuckler. Leading readers to the gaping Manhattan cavity left by the demolition of the old Waldorf Astoria, we meet Michael Briody, late of Cavan Town in Ireland, who drives the first rivet into the first steel column placed at the Empire State Building site. Cigars glow, flash bulbs pop, backs get slapped and Irish dandy Mayor Jimmy Walker smiles the smile of a man who gets a kickback, a commission he calls it, on every construction project in New York. Yet the winds of reform swirl. Its 1930 and the feds are on to miscreant Walker---Jimmy knows his time is short.


Walker runs New York under the guise of benefactor and patron to the city's immigrant poor and teeming masses. Behind his dapper, populist front lurks a man who controls Tammany Hall, arguably the most ruthless and corrupt political machine in American history. Walker's silky smile and engaging manner belie the pyramidal network of crooked cops, judges, assassins and thugs of every ilk who execute the misdeeds of the Tammany machine. American-born Irish like Walker and his right-hand `judges and jackhammers' man, Johnny Farrell, pull the strings while immigrant Irish like Briody fight to rise out of the gutter, keeping one foot in the aulde sod and one foot in their adopted America. Michael Briody served time in Curragh prison for anti-Free State, republican foot soldiering after Ireland's 1916 Rising. A man possessing knowledge of explosives, Briody curiously joins the British Army and fights in World War I before coming to America. He remains a staunch Irish republican.


Under Mayor Walker money talks and illegal liquor flows in the speakeasies, or speaks, as they're called. The Market crashed in 1929 and former big-time players peddle apples in the streets. A smart, tough Irishman can rise up in this environment and become wealthy if he knows who to pay homage and money to. He can also wind up in a grave if he backs the wrong horse. As the Empire State Building and city rise metaphorically in tandem, we find Briody as he connects with Bronx-born Tough Tommy Touhey, a homicidal brute who owns a few speaks and a piece of the Empire State project. He's a former childhood friend to Walker's Johnny Farrell, but takes umbrage as Farrell disdains his lower-class Bronx roots.

Tough Tommy coaxes Briody into entering a cops-only boxing match. That Briody is not a cop is no stumbling block to him beating his cop opponent to a pulp. In attendance at the match is our Johnny Farrell, who squires Grace Masterson, a fatally-flawed femme fatale. She takes a liking to Briody, and him to her, when they meet in a speakeasy after the fight. She's an artist and late of Cavan herself, having lost heart, two sons, a husband and her faith on the trail from Ireland to Spain to Cuba, to Florida and finally New York. She's also mistress to the married Farrell---infidelity's seemingly a requisite to Hall membership. Grace also performs as bag woman to Farrell, to wit, she makes money drops at banks around town. Ill advisedly, Grace occasionally siphons a little pre-deposit money off the top.


Clan Na Gael, the arm of the Irish republicanism in New York, hovers in the background. Michael Briody is a natural recruit for Clan Na Gael, having demonstrated his willingness to kill for a cause. As his relationship with Grace burgeons, Briody enlists and partners with Clan Na Gael, participating in gun and explosives running to Ireland----and worse.

Inching its way to the forefront is the Italian syndicate and the sadistic `Dago', of whom Tough Tommy Touhey says, "He wants what we got," meaning the rackets, speaks and protection payoffs. Observing a soft spot in the Tammany machine, the Dago glad hands and threatens Farrell into working with him to acquire a piece of the action. As the reform movement gathers steam in Albany and Washington, the world of our players turns upside down. A judge formerly on the take suffers an untimely demise after demonstrating reluctance to adhere to a machine directive. The philandering Farrell discovers that his pilfering girlfriend Grace is unfaithful. Touhey disappears and turns up dead. But is it really him? After a moment of epiphany, Briody decides that killing only begets more killing and suffers a dangerous falling out with Clan Na Gael. Hoohah! I just had my own moment of epiphany. It's best to turn the rest of the tale over to Thomas Kelly.

The author takes readers on a wonderful ride through the gritty urban landscape that was New York City during Prohibition. Tales of power, greed and corruption get mixed in with liberal doses of violence in Empire Rising. Along with his previous novels, Payback and The Rackets, Rising is a must for readers fascinated by crafty historical fiction.

Combine Depression era Manhattan, Irish nationalism and the workings of Tammany Hall, all in the ever growing shadow of the construction of the Empire State Building - Add well portrayed real and fictional characters in a plot line that ties the above together and the result is an entertaining read and a very good novel. The only fault I found with this book is that the author, at times, steps into the story to "explain" his characters, which is not necessary. This may sound like a nit but the rest of the writing is so good that these "intrusions" were somewhat jarring. That being said this book is still highly recommended.

As a chronicler of the dark, gritty underworld of New York City's working-class labor, Thomas Kelly has definitely become its poet laureate in his novel "Empire Rising", among the finest novels I have read of Depression-Era New York City (It actually deserves 4.5 stars from me and I wish Amazon.com had the option of bestowing an additional half star.). This is a dramatic, vivid, and richly-textured, no-holds-bar examination of New York City in 1931, as seen through the eyes of recent Irish immigrant Michael Briody, who works by day building the Empire State Building, and then, by night as both a boxer and an unrepentant soldier of the Irish Republican Army. In New York City he soon meets another, more worldly, recent Irish immigrant, Grace Masterson, and falls in love with her, even though he knows that she is the "concubine" of powerful Tammany Hall leader Johnny Farrell. This is indeed far from a romantic look of the Empire State Building's construction, since Kelly depicts his characters being immersed in a dark, often bloody, underworld of Tammany Hall political intrigue, Irish-run organized crime, and Irish Republican Army strife. Without question, "Empire Rising" is not only Kelly's best work of fiction, but also among the finest I have seen from the latest generation of Irish-American writers residing here in New York City.

This is not the type of book I have a reputation for reading. It's a hard-core, bare-knuckles, get-to-the-top kind of fictional tale, set in Depression-era New York City, and it features among its fine cast of characters a number of real life personas, including future President Franklin Roosevelt, and New York's irrepressible "born for office" governor, Al Smith.

Empire Rising tells the story of New York City at all levels of society during this tough time, and uses the construction of the Empire State Building as a backdrop and metaphor. As Kelly pulls no punches in stating, it is the Irish, those first, second, and third generation rough-souled immigrants who make New York City function. Not only is it the Irish who run the city at both the street level and into the halls of power, but it is Irish working men who provide the backbone of the labor force that is building New York's most prized showpiece, the Empire State Building. (Think it's a coincidence that construction on the project began on Saint Patrick's Day?)

The character of Michael Briody, who has gone from a terrorist group's hitman to a soul in love with the dream that is the skyscraper he's struggling to see completed, is Kelly's best figure in this novel. He seems a very realistic individual, leagues removed from the stick-figure stereotypes so many other authors would have employed here in this sort of situation.

I enjoyed this novel, even if it was definitely at times a little cold and lacking in human kindness. I think it shines light onto what is both a forgotten and mysterious period in American history, and it also gives a reader an excellent plot that never slows or grows tiresome, and which reaches masterful heights in its climactic moments.

I read this book 15 years ago or so, captivated by the story and its telling. When I set it down, a thought just popped up: now I know why I am here. "Here" is Washington, DC, USA. My great grandfather arrived here as a boy from Kerry in 1848, and we still don't know with whom he might have come. We know he had a much younger brother who stayed in Ireland, probably with parents (if they were still alive; it was easy to wonder after reading O'Flaherty's tale). I turned the book over to my then-13 year old daughter; an untimely fatherly recommendation if there ever was one. I did not know then that O'Flaherty was a rebel. I recall only thinking that the writer was a great storyteller. You could almost taste the putrid and blackened potatoes as they fell apart in the characters' hands. A powerful story of roots, intimately felt by at least one family.

I read the book because one of my great-great-grandfathers immigrated to the USA about the time of the famine, and I wanted to learn more about his life in Ireland. This book delivered. From the first page to the last, the author describes everything interestingly and in detail. I don't have any way of knowing how accurate the details are, and I'd like to know the author's source for them, but they all ring true to me. I find it interesting that many of the characters' expressions are what I've heard in my own family! I don't doubt some of them were passed down through the generations.

The other thing I appreciated was the author's commentary on the conflict between working people and the elite. It made me see similarities between the present and the Irish famine of the 1840s.

Because he was famous as a participant in the Irish Civil War (in 1922, he raised a red flag over the Dublin Rotunda) and because his best-known book is "The Informer," Liam O'Flaherty is regarded primarily as a novelist of the Irish rebellion. In a letter to the Irish Statesman, he celebrated "the wild tumult of the untamed storm, the tumuilt of the army on the march, clashing its cymbals, rioting with excess of energy." Like our own Theodore Dreiser, he was capable of being crude, grandiose and melodramatic, and he was often swamped by his own rhetoric. But he was also capable, far more than Dreiser, alas, of reaching and expressing astonishingly delicate perceptions of the human soul.

At his best, O'Flaherty was one of the great natural forces of 20th Century literature. Like Jean Giono or Knut Hamsun, when writing about the land, the sea and the simpler creatures, including here peasants and seamen, his writing takes on the elemental forcefulness of classic folk tales. "Famine," his greatest work in this mode, is matched only in his best short stories. It reads as freshly today as it did when it was first published 45 years ago.

In 1845, the population of Ireland was estimated at 8.5 million. By 1851, it had been reduced by two million, half of whom had died and half of whom had fled, mostly to the U.S. and other former British colonies. The raw numbers do not do justice to the magnitude of the catastrophe that had befallen Ireland. In large parts of the south and west, traditional culture had been uprooted and destroyed.

Focusing on a family of County Galway tenant farmers, the Kilmartins, "Famine" inserts us into the horror of the "great hunger." A study of the uses of power -- by the old English ascendancy, by the rising middle class of usurious merchants, by the embattled (and mostly defeated peasants), it records the final days of an ancient, ritualistic society, unhinged by the destruction of the customs and traditions that had given shape and meaning to life. It is also about survival, especially that of Mary Gleeson Kilmartin, who fights for her family with fierce determination.

["Famine" was first published in 1937 but was never available in soft cover until a handsome edition was offered by David R. Godine's line of quality paperbacks, Nopareil, which also published works by Benedetto Croce, Edmund Wilson, Paula Fox, William Gass and Stanley Elkin. It was thought at the time that the publisher might be moved to reprint O'Flaherty's excellent short story collections, "Spring Sowing" and "The Tent." If you can find the Nonpareil edition, buy it; it is avaialble now in a version from Interlink.]

What an enthralling book. Such wonderful depiction of Irish life, the way it REALLY was. I just can't put it down!! A++++ on this magnificent piece of work!

For someone like myself, who actually lost family members as a result of the "Great Famine," I was awe-struck by how the author so dramatically portrays the insensitivity and cruelty exhibited by the English during Ireland's greatest moment of need.

I have really enjoyed reading her books they make me feel like I am in the story. I laugh and cry out loud. I really would recomend this series to someone who likes love, hate and mystery all rolled in to one. The characters to me are funny and real

Benni Harper is busy with many projects. Thereýs a new exhibit going into the artistýs co-op, sheýs writing up the story of Japanese-Americans from the area during World War II, and sheýs helping put on a senior prom at San Celinaýs retirement home. As the dance draws to a close, she finds two of the residences murdered. What did they have in common that would lead to their deaths? Meanwhile, old flame Clay OýHara is back in town. His status as lead suspect starts to come between Benni and Gabe. Benni finds herself drawn into solving this case no matter what Gabe says. If she stays alive long enough to do it, will this end their relationship?

Once again, Ms. Fowler has written a captivating story told with real emotion. Itýs hard not to be drawn into this world and really care for the characters. I found myself choking up on more then one occasion, yet also smiling and laughing at many of the lighter moments. The plot seems to get a little sidetracked near the middle, but picks up speed and reaches an interesting and satisfying conclusion.

Anyone looking for a mystery with strong characters and interesting stories will love this series. I wonýt be able to stop myself from picking up the next to see what these people, I mean characters, are up to next.

In this story Benni Harper is sponsoring a dance at the local retirement home. Clay O'Hara, a handsome man from her past is in town to visit his retired uncle and wants to resume a relationship with Benni. Of course she's flattered, but she has been dating Gabe Ortiz, the Acting Police Chief for several months and they may be on their way to some type of commitment. When two of the residents of the retirement home are killed, Chief Ortiz suspects Clay of the murders. Benni's defense of her old friend Clay, causes a rift between her and Gabe.

Due to the fact that one of the murdered victims was involved in helping the local Japanese community, the author gives us the very fascinating and tragic story of the Japanese Americans who were sent to internment camps during World War II.

Earlen Fowler keeps the reader entertained with her interesting characters in her second Benni Harper Book.

It's so much fun to read about many of my favorites... I love California, love quilts, love murder mysteries and fun characters! I liked this one so much I bought the rest of the series....

This is my first by Earlene Fowler, and as a quilter, I was really looking forward to a quilting mystery. It wasn't. QUilting was extremely tangential to the plot and in fact, there's not a lot of mention of quilting at all. I could have forgiven that, but there's too little time spent on the mystery, in my opinion, and too much time spent on our heroine's love life, most of which seemed to consist of passionate urges and fights with her boyfriend (and frankly, he had my sympathy as much as she did).

The plot involves two residents of a nursing home found dead in a room. Our heroine Benni Harper gets involved because she discovers the bodies (the night of a prom she's putting on in the nursing home). Her boyfriend is Acting Chief of Police and warns her not to get involved, that it's dangerous and it's not her job to solve this murder. If she had listened, the book would have ended there.

For not very good reasons (mainly, that she's stubborn and doesn't listen to anyone), Benni begins poking around investigating these murders. At the same time, she re-establishes relationships with a couple of men who have reappeared in town, including an old flame (who is, of course, one of the prime suspects -- but does that slow her down any? not our Benni -- she continues to find herself alone with him despite her boyfriend's warnings.)

The book was good enough that I kept reading it and finished it in a few days, but to be honest, I was disappointed because I'd heard such good things. Maybe people who like a lot of romance and not much quilting or mystery will like this book a whole lot more than I did.

Irish Whiskey, the third of Andrew Greeley's Nuala Anne McGrail mysteries is not as successful as its predecessors. The mystery deals with the mysterious death of an Irish bootlegger, Jimmy "Sweet Rolls" Sullivan and once again Nuala has the feeling something is not quite right with the story. But the mystery plays second fiddle to two sub-plots; the upcoming wedding of Nuala and her stalwart Watson, Dermot, and a case against Dermot concerning how he achieved the financial independence he has. The former is a problem due to the machinations of Nuala's oldest brother; the latter is caused by a vindictive figure from Dermot's past. Both these storylines take away from the original mystery, which plays second fiddle to these soap opera plot lines. While Greeley continues to make Nuala and Dermot enjoyable and believable characters this was a disappointing sequel.

Nuala Anne and her finance are wandering through an old cemetery when they happen upon the tombstone of a notorious Chicago gangster. Fiance proceeds to tell the story of this man's demise, however Nuala Anne tends to disagree. Her extra Irish female intuition is at work and claims that all is not what it appears to be! The twosome adventure through quite a detective story that rattles old bones well-kept in closets. They find themselves in the mix of the current day Mafia and having conversations with people who have mixed emotions about keeping decades old secrets in the skeleton closet where they belong.

Dear reader is delighted to enjoy an interesting work of fiction loosely connected to Chicago Mafia history. Repeated Irish outburts by the indefatigable lass keep us smiling continuously. The story is well-written and encourages investigation of other works by Greeley.

I've liked Greeley's work ever since a friend handed me _God Game_ almost two decades ago. Now, however, I'm formally and officially in awe of the man's craftsmanship. I read the book in a headlong, two-days-and-one-night rush, all the while thinking: "This story *shouldn't* be working . . . but it is." It works because Greeley's storytelling abilities salvage a plot that would, in the hands of a lesser writer, have ended in the literary equivalent of a train wreck.

Like the two earlier volumes in the series, _Irish Whiskey_ sets Dermot and Nuala both a historical mystery to unravel. This time, however, the mystery takes more exposition than usual to set up and--once set up--pays off in an unsurprising solution that Dermot and Nuala don't so much reason out as stumble over. Resolution comes in the form of still *more* exposition. Yawn.

Also like the two earlier volumes in the series, _Irish Whiskey_ gives Dermot and Nuala personal obstacles to overcome. Up until now, the problems have been mutual--two lovers working out the tempo and texture of their relationship. This time, however, the problems are separate and external, taking the focus off the Dermot-Nuala relationship at a crucial time in their lives (just prior to their wedding). It doesn't help that the characters responsible for their problems (Nuala's obnoxious brother, Dermot's slimy ex-school-chum, and a politically ambitious prosecutor) are two-dimensional caricatures in a book whose main characters act like living, breathing human beings. Greeley, who can motivate characters with the best of them, barely bothers here. The "bad guys" are rotten to the heroes because . . . well, because *somebody* has to be for the plot to work. The lawyer is particularly ill-served by this. Throughout the last third of the book she repeatedly does boneheaded things for no other reason than to keep the plot moving and set up a big courtroom showdown.

And yet . . . (as herself might put it), doesn't the good Father Greeley make it a fine read altogether? Nuala and Dermot are still two of the *nicest* fictional characters this side of Spider Robinson's "Callahan's Bar" stories, and their dialogue is still delightful for its unfamiliar rhythms (unfamiliar to Yankee ears, anyhow), its humor, and its affectionate verbal jousting. The courtroom scene is riveting, and it's a pleasure to see Dermot's sister (the lawyer in the family) come into her own as a character. I finished the book the way I finished the first two: Smiling broadly, and wishing I could wangle an invitation to dinner with Dermot, Nuala, and their extended families. Ah, now wouldn't that be a time?

I now have read all three of this lovely trilogy and hope and pray to Nuola for the stories to go on and on and on and on.

I have probably 2/3rds of the Greeley novels, including Irish Lace and Gold. After the first few pages I thought this was going to be a quickly slapped together journal of the events leading up to the nuptials of our heroes, Dermot and Nuala. In fact, I put it down, and only picked it up again after some unexpected down time.

For those of you who presevere, you will find the usual complicated mystery threads, that always tie together quite nicely by the end.

I love Greeley's lack of pretension. I live on the "fringes" of the Chicago Irish community. By that I mean I belong, by heritage, and I am enjoying the recent resurgance of anything Gaelic and Irish, but some take it too far. Many in the community tend to wrap their nationality, newfound respectability and religion about themselves, and use it as a cover to excuse immoral or otherwise bad behavior. Greeley always manages to blow these people away!

What I have always enjoyed about Greeley is his social stance. The protagonists are flawed, yet quietly pious and moral. That would describe Nuala and Dermot. Her brother Lawrence represents the other side of the coin, hiding behind his heritage as he imposes his hatred on everyone else. To me, how the lovers handled his intrusion was the far more interesting mystery of the book.

Tucker has put together a solidly researched and masterfully written history of not just Notre Dame and the Klan, but the innermost thoughts and manipulations of those who wielded the power of the KKK in its heyday. One does not have to have any association with Notre Dame to enjoy this book. Superbly done

Todd Tucker exploits one of the least known storys of the University of Notre Dame in a great way. He doesn't keep it boring, which i have found most other history books to be. It is a very easy read, but not in a bad way at all. I really enjoyed how he also brought in the history of Notre Dame, which i don't think i really would have known otherwise. Also how he talked about the beloved football team. I couldn't asked for anything less.

The true story of how the teams, faculty and student body
were able to fend off this attempt by the Klu Klux Clan to
destroy the university. An exciting one sit reading.

I am a Notre Dame graduate(class of 1959)and had heard of this clash between the ND student body and KKK, but I knew only the barest details. Therefore, this book was most welcome. It not only covers the 1924 confrontation in almost minute-by-minute detail but serves as a fascinating informal history of both the KKK, especially its post-"Birth of a Nation" spread in the North, and of the University itself from its 1842 founding date. The book should therefore be fascinating to any ND alum, including those of the subway variety, and would probably be of interest to a general readership was well.

Very interesting history of both Notre Dame and the Klan in Indiana, particularly relevant to anyone with an interest in either Notre Dane or the KKK. (We all might have guessed that a prominent member of Indiana society was a Klansman, but who knew that he kidnapped a girl and bit her to death?) Tucker's book is a little less sensational than that previous sentence implies, but this is a nonfiction book that reads with a lot of drama and excitement.

Mystery, suspense, action, friendships and romance are interwoven so well that it will make you hours late for whatever you were supposed to be doing or wherever you were supposed to be. Watch out or you will finish the book without having meant to. Do yourself a favor and start the book during the weekend!

I have read all the molloy murphy mysteries and recommend them to any good mystery buff. The books move well and the plot is well developed with great twists and turns.

The history of this book transports you back to the turn of the century New York. Molly is a women that I would like to know. In fact she might have been my great grandmother.

This is the third Molly Murphy mystery. I've not read them in any particular order, as each book will stand alone.
In this book, she is working two cases. She goes undercover in a sweat shop and is also hired by a wealthy Englishman to find his daughter, who has run away. The two cases will come together. Another woman is thought to be Molly and is murdered, Molly is in a fire and in the closing pages is almost thrown from a bridge. Molly is an Irish immigrant living in New York City in the early 1900's. You've got to love Molly and her friends.

In addition to the wonderful character of Molly Murphy, I love the descriptions of old NY (of course, I AM a NYer!) esp the conditions of sweatshops, the backbone (and scarlet letter) of the garment industry. many people think of the fancy mansions and the Astors when they think of that time period, before they think of the slums and inquality that existed at the time.

also, nice samuel clemens name dropping!