Death at Christy Burke's: A Mystery (A Collins-Burke Mystery)

by Anne Emery

Hardcover, 2011

Status

Available

Call number

813.6

Collection

Publication

ECW Press (2011), 370 pages

Description

When spray-painted graffiti appears on the wall of Christy Burke's pub indicating that there's a killer on the premises, his grandson, Father Brennan Burke, is asked to investigate the vandalism. Though not at all keen on probing into the lives of the bar's clientele, he has little choice once a body is found on the property. Issuing orders from a cell in Mountjoy Prison, the pub's current owner wants the problem solved without the police anywhere near his building. Assisted by his pal Monty Collins and fellow priest Michael O'Flaherty, Brennan begins to uncover dark secrets worth killing for in the lives of the pub regulars. In addition to the events surrounding the pub, Brennan's murder investigation becomes overshadowed by ominous events in Belfast that may soon come home to roost in Dublin. Sinister figures are spotted in and around the pub, people are being followed in the street, and Brennan comes to possess explosive information that he cannot reveal to security forces. The situation compels him to take a hard look at Irish history and his family's place in it, and he can't shake the feeling that an act of violence in Northern Ireland is about to be avenged soon?and very close to home.… (more)

Media reviews

The Globe & Mail, Canada
Halifax lawyer Anne Emery’s terrific series featuring lawyer Monty Collins and priest Brennan Burke gets better with every book. The seventh outing moves from Halifax to Dublin, where Father Burke is tending his grandfather’s bar. When someone paints a message claiming there’s a killer in the
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bar, Burke is asked to investigate. The owner, currently in prison, has reasons not to call in the police. Burke finds his old friend Monty Collins and Michael O’Flaherty, another priest, more than adequate to the task. Filled with Irish history and lore, this is a delightful change for Emery’s regulars.
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User reviews

LibraryThing member judithrs
Death at Christy Burkes’s. Anne Emery. 2011. The seventh Monty Collins/Brennan Burke novel is set in Ireland and is really more about the “Irish Problem” and Brennan’s fellow priest, Michael O’Flaherty than Monty Collins and Brennan Burke. All of them are Ireland and Burke and
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O’Flaherty’s are determined to discover who is defacing the wall of Christy Burke’s pub which originally belonged to Burke’s grandfather. Monty and his wife, Maura appear occasionally; they are still separated. And Brennan provides some un-asked-for marriage counseling. And we are given some insight into Burke and O’Flaherty’s Catholicism, but not enough as this is what attracted me to Emery’s novels originally, this and setting of Nova Scotia. In the process of investigating the vandalism, Emery has the characters relate facts about Ireland and its struggles. Had I not already read Frank Delaney’s Ireland and Tipperary and Leon Uris’ Trinity, I would have found this background material more interesting—well, it’s not that is isn’t interesting, fascinating even, but I know it already! The novel is well written, the mystery intriguing and the ending is completely unexpected. I do wish she’d put Monty and Brendan back in Halifax and let them solve church-related mysteries.
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Original language

English

Physical description

370 p.; 6.4 inches

ISBN

1550229885 / 9781550229882
Page: 0.2357 seconds