It's almost St. Patrick's Day, and I admit to a special liking for the holiday. It's not because of my Irish heritage; it is because the holiday falls on the day before my birthday (I had many green-iced birthday cakes growing up thanks to bakery discounts). What better way to celebrate than an exploration of Ireland's healthy crop of mystery and crime fiction! I can only mention a few, so I'll start with one of my favorite Irish authors: Tana French. Her 2007 debut mystery, Into the Woods, won Edgar, Macavity, Anthony and Barry awards for best first novel and launched her Dublin Murder Squad series. A male-female detective team investigates the murder of a young girl in the same place where two children went mysteriously missing "into the woods" many years earlier (with a very personal connection for one detective). The latest French work is 2016's The Trespasser, in which a slamdunk, lover's-quarrel murder pulls the Murder Squad protagonists in unexpected directions. Another good Irish author choice is Benjamin Black, the mystery-writing pen name of award-winning novelist John Banville. Christine Falls, an Edgar and Macavity awards nominee, launched Black's series about a tormented pathologist named Quirke. Set in 1950s Dublin, the story begins when Quirke tipsily returns to the morgue after a party and finds his own brother-in-law tampering with the records of a young woman's corpse. Quirke reluctantly begins looking into the woman's history and discovers a web of treachery that implicates the Catholic Church and may involve members of his own family. In 2016, Black added Even the Dead to the Quirke series: A mysterious car crash death and a missing pregnant woman lead the pathologist into a dark tangle of profit, politics and religon. Back on the distaff side, another award-winning series comes from Louise Phillips. The Doll House, which won Best Irish Crime Novel of the Year for 2013, features Phillips' series protagonist Dr. Kate Pearson, a criminal pyschologist. Pearson is called in when a body in a Dublin canal ties back to a family's tragic past and newly surfaced, traumatic childhood memories. Liz Nugent's Unravelling Oliver is another Irish Book Award winner; it's a dark "why-dunnit" about a seemingly charming Dublin children's author who shocks the community when he savagely attacks his devoted wife. And if you're looking for crime noir, try Ken Bruen and his lauded Jack Taylor series about a disgraced Galway police officer turned PI whose investigations often confront the negative Irish social changes of "Celtic Tiger" prosperity. Bruen's most recent series entry is 2016's The Emerald Lie. For more Irish mysteries by Irish authors, see https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/irish-crime-fiction
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