Customer Reviews

The Irish Cottage Murder: A Torrey Tunet Mystery (Torrey Tunet Mysteries)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This is a book that will capture the reader's attention from the beginning. The plot is interesting and the characters are enjoyable. The many twists and turns keep the story moving and the reader involved. The heroine has a unique occupation which keeps the story fresh. All of the elements that make a good mystery are here, but they are used in new and refreshing ways. This is hopefully the start to a long series.

The author needs a decent proofreader first: names change (Emmet becomes Danny); there is no notion of currency (TRY to buy a custom-made copy of an antique necklace for five pounds! the rhinestones alone would cost twenty!); and the knowledge of Irish culture is based on too much green beer in Long Island! Then the characters are thinner than tissue paper.

However, the reader endures an awful lot in bad mysteries. A decent plot often gets the sufferer through amateur novels. This plot has more unbelievable coincidences than silly errors! An internationally traveling translator has soup upset on her in a Boston restaurant; the man who does it has just hired the translator's old flame from a tiny town to design his gardens in Ireland. He invites her and the designer to stay at his castle near Dublin. It gets worse. The evil victim bribes young girls aged 8 to 17 into perverted sexual acts, but also has a long-standing homosexual relationship with the 32 year old man who runs his stables? And now he's trying to get the 28 year old female translator into bed?

Help!

The cover art is the best thing about this far-fetched story. The characters are one dimensional, the plot a real stretch - with all the murderous and bloody activity and bizarre leaps this novel still comes out as dull and lacking. While the beautiful Irish setting and the charm of the Irish people should provide a rich backdrop, the scenes change too quickly to be savored. Even translator Torrey Tunet's fascination with language seemed trite and contrived; she was stiff and not particularly unlikeable. The police were insultingly inept; the debauchery of the villain was so vile that it didn't even make good reading. A "cozy" wannabe that simply does not make it.

This book seemed interesting, and it kept me interested enough to actually finish reading it. But it's so full of OMG WTFs that I can't really recommend it for other than the entertainment (in kitschiness) value.

(Occasional) * SPOILER ALERT* Some of the things that made absolutely no sense in this book below:

Torrey Tunet is a 27 years old American interpret, who 16 years ago was 14. The details of her current age, the things that happened 16 years ago (it was 1980 then), and her being 14 then are repeated several times in the book. How can I trust a mystery with this flaky mathematic skills?

Anyway. Torrey is the protagonist, the one resolving the mystery. Let me go back to her... 16 years ago (when she was 14, even though her intellectual age at that stage seems to be of single digits) she was babysitting with a 12-years old friend of hers. They found a bag in the house where they babysat containing over $ 500,000 in cash. Torrey moves $ 100 because she wants to make an impression to her friend. They don't get caught, but her friend acts like an idiot, and the man whose cash stash they found, is caught for IRS evasion. He commits suicide (and this is what Torrey gets blamed for, even though it was her friend that twittered and who caused the scandal). Then that twittery friend of Torrey wants to escape her home, but her parents send her upstairs to her room. She jumps out of her second floor window, gets paralyzed at waist, and this is also Torrey's fault - not only in Torrey's own view but everyone seems to think so. What I don't get it how that would be HER fault...

Back to Torrey. She is in Dublin for a "Hungarian-Belgian conference", doing Hungarian to French interpretation and back. But wouldn't it be slightly easier, cheaper, and less work visa intensive to find such interpret from, say, Hungary?

And not only does she speak fluent English, Hungarian, French, Turkish, Greek, Finnish, Gaelic, two Scandinavian languages, Portuguese, conversational Russian, but she's also interested in the etymology of many Latin, Germanic and Anglo origin words. Wait, 10 fluent languages? I could buy that, except with not those language combinations. And not as something she learned in 10 years period living in a village of barely 3,000 people in US. Of the languages she knows so perfectly, these are not related to any language, and are a horrendous task to learn even one of these: Finnish, Hungarian, Gaelic, Turkish (and Greek to an extent). It is extremely incredible she would be fluent in that language combination: if she was, she'd have to have been submerged to those languages since childhood (and no, having a Romanian farther does not help with any of those languages. It would help for Latin based languages, but she only seems to be perfect in Portuguese as no others were listed). She would be one of hundreds of millions with a brain anomaly, and if she had that - what an earth would she be doing with the sporadical interpret gigs to start with? And hey - very few of my Irish colleagues in Ireland, born and raised there, would have even basic Gaelic skills despite them having learned it in school for many years.
Torrey also has an annoying habit of know-it-all for explaining some words history in other languages.

While Torrey is in her conference in Dublin, she stays in a castle that is close to Ballynagh, in Wicklow, 30 minutes from Dublin in rush hour. But Wicklow is over an hour drive in South, outside rush hour, and Ballynagh is 2-3 hours towards West of Dublin. The castle owner, whom she had met only once, had invited her to stay at his place while visiting Dublin, and even though Torrey doesn't like that man, she accepts the invitation.

A Finnish man, with a Finnish last name, and Swedish/Scandinavian first name, so who apparently would have been of a Swedish speaking minority of the Finns, is found (by Torrey) dead close to the castle. How did he end up there? That didn't tie credibly in the solution in the end, or in any part of the story before then.

The annoying castle owner loans Torrey a family heirloom, which Torrey "loses". When her conscience makes her return it, he tells her she can keep that $ 50,000 piece of jewelry. Later that day, when Torrey is in Dublin, she asks casually for the value of the heirloom, and gets arrested for murder.

I'll skip the parts of the murder investigation (of which police does none) to make the list of what makes no sense, or what is as dimensional as the way the church viewed the earth's shape in the middle-ages, or which is story or solution wise as solid as a Swiss lacey cheese.

The Finnish man drove an automatic car. In the 1990s very few Finns would have ever driven an automatic, and the cost of renting an automatic vs manual in Ireland would have been about 5 x as expensive.

There are a lot of interesting characters hanging around the castle: Winifred, a poet, lesbian cousin of the castle owner, and her girlfriend/publisher Sheila. Another American who is from the same village Torrey grew up and whose family was destroyed by what happened 16 years ago, see above. There are some Irish characters too, of course, but none of the dialogs by or with them seem to fit an Irish mouth. "How do you do?" Guess how many times have I heard that or by how many people while living in Ireland for 6 years? Not even once.

An Irish lady working for a butcher earns 32 pounds a week. This story was apparently set to happen in 1996, yet her salary would have been at minimum wages of maybe early 1980s or late 1970s.

And while Torrey finds a way to get out of the police station, and investigate who really murdered those men, she's also desperately searching for $ 40,000 to finance an operation that will magically fix the spine of her friend that I still don't understand how it would have been Torrey's fault if the friend jumped out of her window...

Apart of those tiny little details, a fast read, a light mystery, and entertaining in how badly all those mistakes stood out. This is probably the longest systematical trashing of details in a book I've ever written, but it definitely has more holes than an Emmental or Octopussy's screenplay. **

This book is quite strange. Charactors are thin, the author jumps around to too many different perspectives, the romance is promising but falls flat for no good reason. But, somehow, it is a page turner. I read it quicker then I usually do a 295 page mystery book. Probably because I thought it hopeless to try to guess the who done it; not because of the complicated web woven, but because it seemed obvious that the clues weren't really there to be solved.
Since it is a page turner, and has an interesting atmosphere, yet is not a fabulous book, I am recommending that all judge for themselves...read it.

In this first novel, the author draws us into a complex story full of many secrets. The main character, American Torrey Tunet, is an international translator who becomes involved in two murders in Ireland that may- or may not- be connected. Deere makes the setting, an Irish castle and its surrounding hills and forests, and the characters, an interesting mix of people whose lives touch the castle and its owner, come alive for the reader with descriptive word pictures. All the secrets, especially Torrey's, are not revealed immediately, but are told a nugget of information at a time over many chapters, which serves to keep the reader's interest and sustain the suspense. This is a book not to be missed, and I wouldn't be surprised if it were nominated for some awards. I was glad to read that it's the beginning of a series. Torrey's a winner!

Massachusetts resident Torrey Tunet travels to Dublin to work as a language translator at a conference. She will stay at the castle of wealthy Desmond Moore. However, her joy at staying at Castle Moore turns ugly when she learns landscape designer Luke Willinger will also stay there. Luke hates Torrey for destroying his family. Torrey agrees with his assessment as the guilt from a theft she did fourteen years ago still haunts her, especially when she sees what it did to her best friend.

However, murder intercedes and the police suspect Torrey. When Moore dies too, the police strongly feel Torrey did the crime because she possesses a Moore heirloom that she insists Desmond gave to her. She was going to sell the necklace to pay for an operation for her best friend and perhaps alleviate some of her own guilt. Now in deep trouble, Torrey turns to her fellow American, who still holds a grudge because her teenage theft directly led to his father's suicide.

THE IRISH COTTAGE MURDER is a well-done debut novel due to the finely tuned motives and flaws of the characters. The guilt-laden Torrey and her nemesis, the still grieving Luke, make for an interesting, dysfunctional couple. The story line is entertaining though too many subplots fail to tie back to the main tale and at times overwhelms it. Still, no one will believe that this is Dicey Deere's debut as amateur sleuth fans have much to celebrate with a new heroine.

Harriet Klausner

A pleasant surprise for this cozy mystery fan! So often this su-genre is represented by fluffy, silly novels. Not so with "The Irish Cottage Murder", the first in the series. This is a story with substance, interesting characters and a heroine that's a real person, faults and all; how refreshing! The suspense builds well throughout the book, with some unexpected twists along the way. An especially enjoyable aspect of the main character, Torrey Tunet, is her job as an translator, and her amazing knowledge of numerous languages. This is woven in to the story in fun (and sometimes extremely useful) ways. You'll enjoy this book if you are looking for a good cozy mystery and a great many-layered puzzle to figure out.

This book's wonderful Irish setting sends me back to the time I spent touring the beautiful west coast of Ireland. Although the mystery is not heavy by any means, the charm of the characters keeps the story moving along. I'm looking forward to reading another in the series. Light reading, but very enjoyable, especially if you have a soft spot in your heart for Ireland and its charming people.

Ran across it at the library recently. Found it entertaining. Sort of an English country manor mystery set in Castle Moore formerly Castle Cummerbund or some such, in Wicklow. They don't have a butler but they try. Servants may know everything. Or nothing. Same for the Irish locals. American heroine accused, will she be vindicated? Did she actually do it? If not her, who? If her, why? And what about the cameo by 18th century ancestors? Whose ancestors? And the pedophilia hook is always reliable. Did I mention the lesbian poets? And the magical necklace, does it end up in the lake? If so will it make a magical reappearance in a later book? Should it? Is there anything Ms. Deere missed here?

Did everybody do it(that seems possible at some points)? What did the horses know? Is the mare, Darlin Pie, as innocent as she seems? Why was Black Pride, the stallion, so upset? What was wrong with Sergeant Bryson's bike? Was he able to fix it or did he need a new one? Isn't two extra pounds excessive for keeping an eye on the child at the butchers? Could you pretend to go to Cork from Wicklow and back in the time it takes to go to Flaherty's and hang out? Is there really a bus from Oughterard to Wicklow? Can one get to Wicklow from Oughterard? Does Ms. Deere have any idea where Cork, Kerry, Wicklow and Oughterard are? Is Oughterard actually in the Gaeltacht?

Many more questions could be posed in fun and earnest. Meanwhile it seems that everybody except the police are investigating the murder.

I have no idea if Ms Deere is having fun or if we are to take the stagey Irish and American characters and scenes seriously. Turns out there is a series based on the Tunney character so I suppose she is somewhat serious. Toward the end I think she overdoes the twists and turns, probably to extricate the good guys, but still, entertaining.