Death of a Prominent Citizen by Cora Harrison

Thanks to Severn House and Netgalley for a copy of Death of a Prominent Citizen by Cora Harrison in exchange for an honest review.

My thoughts

This is book 7 in the Reverend Mother series, but it easily works as a standalone.

In the middle of the night, wealthy Charlotte Hendricks has her throat slit. While it’s possible that the killer is an outsider, the book has the feel of an Agatha Christie-ish locked-door mystery. There are plenty of interesting suspects. So who is it?

the Suspects

Julie Clancy, the long-suffering unpaid companion/servant of her cousin Charlotte, will be destitute and homeless . . .

the Reverend Mother’s cousin Lucy is financially secure, but she would do anything to help her daughters be safe, secure, and spoiled with lovely things. But does anything include murder . . .?

Claude Clancy‘s pub/club is almost bankrupt . . .

Brenda O’Mahony wants to restore her husband’s wine business . . .

Florence Clancy, the orphaned niece of Brenda, has grand dreams of touring Russia to study art. But travel is expensive . . .

Professor Nicholas Hendrick is Charlotte’s favorite. He plans to do archaeological research into the Viking influence in their area. Everyone expects that she will leave all the money to him, but what if she changes her mind? She might live another decade or more . . .

And the bedroom window is open, with a rope hanging down the side of the house. After all, that night, violent men protested against this hated landlord’s house while the guests pitched their ideas. Could the killer have come from the outside?

the Detective

Even the Reverend Mother has a motive: that money would help build houses for the destitute she sees each day. But from the start, we know she is an upright character who won’t stoop to murder. The police investigator, Patrick, is one of her former students and he allows her to assist him in the murder investigation because of her level head and observant behavior.

While the Reverend Mother is clearly the heroine of the story, I have to give Patrick his dues. He investigates every possible solution and refuses to allow social class or money to influence his behavior, even when pressured by his supervisor. I liked him a great deal.

I also liked Eileen, a university student, newspaper writer, and former IRA member who has been helped by the Reverend Mother. Her keen eye for details and lively personality are helpful in the investigation. (I “shipped” her and Patrick. I strongly suspect that the Reverend Mother finds the idea amusing, too. These two need to be in a romantic relationship.)

Reverend Mother won my sympathy on page one with her discomfort at a committee meeting dealing with the slum clearance in Cork. She’s horrified by the statistics of how many families live in this unlivable slum. I admired her willingness to work in these conditions, given her advanced age and the feeling of futility that often accompanies the fight against poverty.

the Victim

Most of the committee members are less than sympathetic. These people claim to care about the poor, but it’s obvious that they don’t. They use churchy language to justify their idiotic and unchristian attitudes toward others. And no one is more guilty of this than the Reverend Mother’s cousin, the reviled landlord Charlotte Hendricks.

Charlotte is a victim you’ll love to hate. The woman is despicable even before she shows up on the page, and even more so when she deigns to make an appearance and disparage all except the professor’s ideas. So when she dies, well, no one’s exactly grieving. (Except the Reverend Mother, who does say the prayers for the dead for the woman.)

the Setting

The tension is thick throughout this book. Floods threaten to overrun the Quay and damage the crumbling slum houses. A Viking exhibition turns into a drunken protest against poverty. The IRA shows up, much to witness Eileen’s horror. I was almost breathless as Eileen described the scene, especially when violence broke out.

Cora Harrison captures post-independent Ireland in all its complexities. Freedom from England hasn’t brought all the happiness and prosperity that the rebels promised. The gap between the wealthy and poor grows larger every year. Even those sympathetic to the poor don’t know what to do. And the poverty is heartbreaking.

Yet there are glimmers of goodness in this squalor. Patrick’s insistence on an impartial investigation. Eileen’s courage. A city developer’s passion for building new homes for those in the slums. And when eight children return home from school to find their widowed mother has died in childbirth, the Reverend Mother helps them find new homes. Neighbors who have next to nothing generously take in these orphans. Their generosity stands in contrast to the wealthy’s tight-fisted control.

the Solution

The book’s ending satisfied me. Oddly, this suspect had briefly flitted through my mind, but the author deftly bounced me around with other possible solutions. Even 95% of the way through the book, I didn’t know the ending to this whodunit. Cora Harrison knows how to build a well-constructed plot!

Historical mystery fans. Mystery fans. Anyone interested in 1920s Ireland.

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If you enjoy historical mysteries featuring female nuns as detectives, check out my review for Murder at Whitby Abbey by Cassandra Clark.