SOUL MURDER

TITLE: SOUL MURDER
AUTHOR: ANDREW NUGENT
Pages: 280
Date: 14/03/2009
Grade: 4.5
Details: no. 3 Dennis Lennon & Molly Power Mystery
Library

There is an awful lot going on in this book. It all starts with the murder of Maurice Tyson, housemaster in St. Isidore's boarding school in county Kerry. Superintendent Denis Lennon and Sergeant Molly Power travel from Dublin to Kerry to investigate but fail to come up with a plausible motive for this murder. Has it been an attempt to kidnap a French pupil, who does subsequently disappear? Or could it be connected to the horrific suicide of a former pupil? Then again, it may have been a different motive all together.
Then, Sir Neville Randler, who used to own the building the school now occupies, is murdered in a similar way. But rather than simplifying things, this murder only provides more questions.
When at last both motive and murder are uncovered, it leads to a dramatic finale and the insight that murder isn't the only horrific crime.
These books are not exactly police procedurals, even if the investigators are members of the Gardai. The author is more interested in human relationships than investigative procedures, and for me, this really works.
Two things make these books extra attractive to me: the Irish setting and Molly's husband, Jan-Hein, who is Dutch.
It is a shame Nugent takes his time writing these books because I'm already looking forward to the next one.