Nina Hayes

What a great pleasure this book is to read! I was looking forward to the second installment in the Old Bat Chronicles, and it turned out to be set at the exact time of year I was reading it (pre-Xmas), so that was fun.

The mystery (a cosy) works well for me, as does the good will and camaraderie present in the book. I love the picture it paints of today’s Dublin with its deep roots in folk tradition and relationship to the land. But I think what I like most are the characters. I want to see more of them as their lives unfold. It was great to get to know some of the young people in the neighbourhood this time, and I hope they reappear in later books.

A lovely read at a somewhat stressful moment. Thanks, Nina Hayes!… (meer)

This first volume in the new cosy mystery series, “The Old Bat Chronicles,“ is a promising beginning. Middle aged (fifty ish is middle-aged, right?), newly divorced artist Eve Caulton can hardly believe her luck when she manages to purchase a lovely old cottage on a small Dublin street with five other such cottages. But things go haywire very quickly when a surly neighbour is found stabbed to death in her living room.

So far, so not unlike many a murder mystery, except perhaps for her being a touch older than the general protagonist. But then things start to be really interesting, from the network of older women who band together to help solve the case to the elements of Irish folk magic that arise throughout the book. I love the collaborative theme as opposed to the traditional solo hero who figures everything out and fixes it and punches a couple of people on the way. At the end of the novel, Hayes writes a little about Irish folk magic. All of the folklore in the book is authentic, and Hayes even has a tradition of it within her own family.

Altogether this is a very enjoyable novel, and I am already drumming my fingers waiting for the next installment. Write on, Nina!… (meer)