Well written and well thought out. A book full of twists and turns that you don’t expect. This moved along at a good pace and the characters are likeable and well done. Oozes suspense and unease till the very last page.
I did not see this plot twist coming.
So many jaw dropping moments

I have been really into thrillers and mysteries lately yet this did nothing for me in that respect. It was interesting enough to be able to power through but there were several moments I found myself bored. The plot twist helped renew some interest however, it seemed as though it was added knowing the plot was falling flat. I know a few people that I will recommend this to but it was not what I was looking for.

Voluntarily reviewed after receiving a free copy courtesy of NetGalley, the Publisher and the author, Sarah Stewart Taylor.

Full disclosure-I have not read the earlier books in this series. I received an email invitation and I will always accept invites from St. Martin’s and Minotaur.

This mystery/police (Garda) procedural is well written, decently paced, and can easily be read as a standalone. I never felt lost or like I was missing critical background. I enjoyed it enough that I will probably go back and read the earlier books in the Maggie D’arcy series. I liked the majority of the characters that I assume show up in the whole series, and the way they worked together. I wasn’t a huge fan of some of the personal drama and I didn’t love the ending. It’s the kind of thing that leaves me sad and dissatisfied.

But, there was one other thing that really kept this from being something I could recommend without reservation. Early on, in nearly every witness interview, Maggie noted that the interviewee was lying or holding something back. ‘They’re telling the truth, just not the whole truth.’ It felt like the author was trying too hard to make everyone a suspect to make it impossible to solve the crime(s) before the very end. It’s not enough to keep me from reading more of the series, but it does color my overall impression and dampen my enthusiasm for a new-to-me series. 3.5 stars

A young model is strangled to death in her Dublin apartment but there's no trace of her 2-year-old daughter.

Maggie D'Arcy, new to the Dublin police force, catches the call with her partner on foot patrol. Although she has cracked criminal cases on Long Island, Maggie has no standing in her new country.

Staff shortages give her a few days to work with the detectives, though. She sits in on interviews with the father of the dead woman's child, the mother and sister, and the mother of the tot's playmate. But nobody knows where the child might be.

The fourth book in Sarah Stewart Taylor's series travels a twisty road to the solution.

I couldn't contain my excitement when I received the highly anticipated fourth installment of Sarah Stewart Taylor's Maggie D'arcy mystery series. A Stolen Child takes us on another thrilling journey alongside Maggie, a former Long Island police detective who has relocated to Ireland with her daughter, Lilly, and her boyfriend, Conor. This book proved to be an outstanding addition to the series. Maggie, now working as a patrol officer for the Garda, the Irish police force, finds herself caught up in a heart-wrenching case when she and her partner respond to a call at the home of a murdered young woman. The urgency intensifies as they discover that her toddler is missing.

This book has a strong narrative drive and believe me you will need to know whether this child is safe and will be recovered! I did not figure out the resolution of the mystery in advance and A Stolen Child, went places completely unexpected, while checking off most mystery readers need for a satisfying ending.

One of the standout qualities of A Stolen Child is Taylor's ability to keep readers on their toes. I found myself constantly trying to piece together the puzzle, only to be surprised by the direction the plot took. The author's skillful storytelling kept me engaged from start to finish, making it nearly impossible to put the book down.
As the narrative unfolded, I became even more invested in Maggie's journey. Taylor has a remarkable talent for creating authentic and relatable characters, and Maggie is no exception. The development of other key characters, such as Lilly, Conor, and Adrian, adds depth and richness to the story, making them feel like individuals you truly care about.

In my opinion, this book is Sarah Stewart Taylor's best and I cannot wait to see what she writes next. A Stolen Child combines gripping suspense, emotional depth, and a satisfying resolution that will leave readers eagerly anticipating what comes next for Maggie D'arcy.

I received this book in an exchange for an honest review thanks to Net Galley and Ballantine. I will post this review on Goodreads, Bookbub and Amazon.

In A Stolen Child, we find Maggie settling into life in Dublin. She’s completed Garda training and is walking a patrol beat hoping a spot opens up soon to become a detective. While out of patrol, Maggie and her partner respond to a domestic disturbance call and find nothing amiss until the next day when they are called to the same location only to find a body and a missing toddler. Shorthanded, Roly ropes Maggie into the investigation because of her experience and they frantically search for the child and try to solve the murder.

I really like where this series is going. I feel like Maggie is settling back into her groove and not adrift after the events of the previous books. Her relationship with Conor is going really well and her daughter and his son are all settling nicely into the house together minus the construction. This case was tough for Maggie as it brought up a lot of old feelings and struggles dealing with her cousin and all the what ifs. Can’t wait for the next book in the series.


Thank you @minotaur_books and @netgalley for this eARC in exchange for my honest feedback

A murdered young mom and her missing toddler shock Dublin and surrounding communities. Garda Maggie D'arcy is pulled off foot patrol temporarily to help investigate the crime. It is strange. How could no one have seen anything in this gated community? You will never see the solution coming! Really! This is another wonderfully twisty mystery in the Maggie D'arcy series.

I love Ireland even though I've never been so when I saw this one was set in Ireland I knew I had to give it a try. I was very excited about this book and it didn't disappoint. Maggie was a detective in Long Island and has now moved to Ireland to continue her career in the Garda. Maggie and her partner find a popular tv reality star dead just a couple days after they were called to the dead woman's apartment for a domestic call. To make matters even worse the child of her murder victim is also missing. With a gangland murder also on the books people are spread thin and things are heating up fast.

This book is, I believe, the fourth in a series. I have not read the first three books and had no issues jumping in midstream. :)

This was my first book by Ms. Taylor, and also my first police procedural novel. The story was solid, the characters for the most part were believable, and the plot was neatly wrapped up and tied with a bow before the last page.

What few critiques I have, have more to do with the genre than they do the book. I love character development. I love to see them growing, evolving...or devolving, and changing. I'm guessing had I read the first three novels, this would be more evident. And, of course, a procedural follows *procedure* first and foremost. Also, I found myself more than interested in a small subplot in which something was found inside the wall of Maggie's home. I so desperately wanted to explore that in depth. I was kind of hoping it was going to be the set up for the next novel instead of simply a minor detail.

Overall, a good solid read. However, I don't think that this genre is for me.

Many thanks to the publisher, author, and NetGalley for providing an ARC for me to read and review.

My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher St. Martin's Press for an advance copy of this police procedural set in Ireland with the added addition of an American homicide detective.

One can learn a lot about a society from reading their crime fiction. Crime and mystery books tend to ignore the glitz and the magic that so many places want to foster about their countries and cities. Mystery stories tend to ignore the literary bent of their homelands and get to the root of the problems, known to the people who live there, not endorsed by the tourist board. The lack of social services, the lack of places people can go to for help. The way the neighbors treat victims of crime, and how a society might turn its back. A Stolen Child is the fourth book in the Maggie D'arcy series, written by Sarah Stewart Taylor, featuring a retired American homicide detective and D'arcy's new workplace Dublin, Ireland.

Maggie D'arcy and her daughter left America to make a new life with in Ireland with a new family, and both are starting to get used to the new country and new ways of doing things and for D'arcy a new job in the Irish police, the Garda. After months of training D'arcy is finally allowed to to community patrols with a partner who knows the area. The duo are sent on a call to a flat that had been the scene of a domestic violence call once before. However, now it is a murder. The victim is a model and reality show star Jade Elliot, and her only child is also missing. Due to a shortage in policing D'arcy is asked to join the task force investigating the muder and missing child, one that puts her at odds with various people. For even though D'arcy is thought of as a rookie, D'arcy was a homicide detective and all her skills are telling D'arcy that things are only going to get worse.

A different kind of international mystery with an American character not really a fish out of water, but a fish learning how to swim with a new group of people, and a far different police culture than the character is familiar with. The story is good, with some real twist, and plays fair. The setting is different, and watching the investigation take place through D'arcy, and D'arcy wanting to be all American on it, is quite good. Things make sense. Putting D'arcy on the task force, is explained well, and not just making a character be where the action is. D'arcy is a very good character, and has opinions, which causes real conflict, that again fits the story. The writing is very strong, and the secondary characters seem real, including D'arcy's family. There is a lot to like here, and Taylor is very good at keeping both the narrative moving, and keeping the story fresh and intriguing.

A good series that gets better with each book. Ireland is a very interesting place for a story like this, and to see how the case is handled makes for very good reading. I can' wait to read more adventures about Maggie D'arcy.

This is book 4 in a series and I will state up front that I enjoyed this one much more than the recent installment now that Maggie is a cop again only in Ireland. I think that you could read this one as a stand-alone though I do recommend The Mountains Wild.

While Maggie was a police detective back in America, she had to start over again as a patrol officer or garda as they’re called in Ireland. During an evening on patrol with her partner, they are called to a murder scene where they had previously made a domestic call. Due to the lack of personnel available to investigate and Maggie’s experience and prior professional relationship with senior investigator Roly Byrne, it made sense for her to be allowed to help with the investigation. I found Maggie’s position in investigating a case to be much more natural and fitting in this book given the situation. I even enjoyed watching her butt heads with Detective Fiero again.

Maggie’s new position as a garda was clearly frustrating to her as she consciously knew her place but couldn’t help butting into the investigation like a detective despite herself. This both entertained and annoyed me at times. I also enjoyed the tidbits of Maggie and Conor learning how to weave their lives around each other now that they have joined households on a more permanent basis.

If you enjoy mysteries, I recommend this series that primarily takes place in Ireland with an American female main character.

Thank you to Netgalley and Minotaur Books for a copy provided for an honest review.

I requested this one because it might be an upcoming title I would like to review on my Youtube Channel. However, after reading the first several chapters I have determined that this book does not suit my tastes. So I decided to DNF this one.

This is the first book I have read from this author. This is the 4th book in this series. Although I didn’t read the others I was able to get into the story with this one . I found this book really good and has lots of twists and turns ! I will definitely be reading the others !

This was a good addition to the series. Maggie D'Arcy is now a Garda and is paired up with another Garda, Jason Savage, patrolling a section of Dublin, learning about the community and its residents as she waits for an opportunity to become a detective, the type of work she did for years in New York. They are called to respond to a possible homicide at a flat where they had recently responded to a domestic disturbance call, only to be told by the resident that she was alone and the noise that someone heard must have been the movie she was watching. This time the resident, Jade Elliott, is dead, and Maggie and Jason cannot help but wonder if they missed something the last time. However, more concerning is the discovery that Jade has a young daughter, Laurel, who is missing.

Jade was not married to Laurel's father, Dylan Maguire, but he owned the flat where she lived, paid the bills, and had shared custody of Laurel. Dylan is automatically a suspect, but he has a solid alibi for the time when Jade was murdered, and he seemed genuinely surprised that Laurel was missing.

Maggie is temporarily assigned to the murder and missing child investigation due to her past detective experience in the US. The lead detective assigned to the case is Padraig Fiero, with whom Maggie has had issues in the past (see the prior book in the series, The Drowning Sea), and will have issues again, as Maggie is convinced that something is off about Dylan, while Detective Fiero believes focusing on Dylan, once his alibi is confirmed, is a distraction.

Pressure quickly mounts on the police as multiple days pass with no clues as to the whereabouts of Laurel. The investigation is made more difficult as multiple people -- including Jade's sister Nicola and Jade's friend Elizabeth -- seem to be withholding information; several individuals appear to be overly interested in the investigation but have no obvious connection to Jade; and there are suggestions that Jade's past modelling work as a teenager might play a role, but it is unclear how/why. Maggie and her colleagues will have to unravel multiple mysteries to determine who killed Jade and why and what happened to Laurel. The story has some very good and surprising twists.

A wonderful mystery, especially for those who like books set in Ireland. Maggie D'Arcy, an American police detective, moves to Dublin with her Irish partner, Conor, her teenage daughter, and her Conor's son. She has gone through the process of training to be a Garda, but she's not an official detective yet. She's on beat/community policing duty (which is a wonderful way of keeping the peace) with a delightful man, and they are called to a scene where a young woman has been murdered and her toddler is missing. Some immediate suspects, more later. I have not yet read the first books in this series, but will now. I really enjoy Taylor's writing, plotting, and characterization. Full stars!

This is book 4 in the series, and just as intriguing as the first book! Maggie has completed her irish police training and is settling into her new life in Ireland, with a combined household with her botfriend and their kids, and all the inhereit chaos from that situation, when she finds herself infamiliar territority when a death quickly turns into murder, and as one of the first officers on the scene, she has info to help the detective squad. Thanks to Roly, she gets assigned to help the squad on the murder, and ends up showing them just how good of a detective she is, as she helps to see justice for Jade. It's an interesting loom at starting over combined with a pageturner mystery!

This is the fourth in the Maggie D’arcy series; it is the second one I have read. Although I was glad to have had an earlier introduction to some of the characters, this would work as a standalone.

Maggie, a former Long Island, NY detective, has relocated to Ireland with her daughter. They are living with her lover and his son. She has completed training to become a Garda and is assigned a partner to do community policing in the Portobello area of Dublin. A woman who lives on Maggie’s beat is murdered and her young daughter is missing. Because the present detective team has another high profile case as well, Maggie is enlisted to assist them with the investigation.

This is a solid police procedural with the unique perspective of an American detective adjusting to life with the Dublin police department. It was a fast, engrossing read; I did not want to put it down. It is a bit dark, with twists and turns.

I enjoy series with strong, cable female MCs and this one has joined my list of must reads.

Thanks to #netgalley and #stmartinspress #minotaurbooks for the ARC

A dual mystery revolves around the murder of a model and the disappearance of her toddler. There are few clues and a neighborhood full of reluctant witnesses. No one is forthcoming, yet there is resentment against the investigators for not making headway. When each lead is extracted with so much effort, it is a wonder that the police can solve their cases. The investigative trio consists of two Irishmen and an American transplant that don't always work well together, but they find something that connects them. They doggedly put the pieces of the puzzle together to find that the picture is not as expected. The lead characters also have personal issues that help you to know them better. This might be my first Irish whodunit, and I liked the colloquialisms. It was a very involved mystery and I enjoyed the manner in which the clues were revealed! Very smooth read, too!!

This is one of the strongest entries to date in Sarah Stewart Taylor’s Maggie D’Arcy series. The first novel, The Mountains Wild, follows the grown Maggie, a detective on Long Island, as she goes back to Ireland to try and discover what happened to her cousin, who went missing years before. She also reconnects with an old flame, and the next two books follow Maggie as she returns to Ireland on a case and as she tries to figure out what’s next in her life. What’s next turns out to be Maggie giving up her job on Long Island, moving in with Conor, her old flame, and taking the class to restart her career as an Irish Guard.

When the novel opens, new Guard D’Arcy (called by the kids on her beat “American Guard”) and her partner are on patrol, when a bunch of kids tell them there’s a duck that’s fallen down a well. The Make Way for Ducklings scene that follows establishes the partnership between Maggie and her fellow guard, gives a bit of a feel for the neighborhood, and sets a tone – Maggie and her fellow guard are decent officers, trying to do the right thing.

When they get a call out late in their shift that something’s off in an apartment they’d been called to a couple days before, they discover the young woman who lived there dead, and her two year old daughter missing. Of course, nothing propels a story like a missing child, and what follows is an absolutely stellar, perfectly assembled police procedural.

The police procedural, to me, is the modern equivalent of the traditional detective novel in its purest incarnation. While the techniques of police investigation are always a part of the story, as they are here, what really solves the case often turns out to be good old fashioned deductive reasoning combined with a gut instinct. Maggie D’Arcy posses this skillset in spades.

As Maggie is just a patrol cop, she’s only called in on the case because the squad is shorthanded. Because she’s worked for years as a full-fledged homicide detective, she’s frustrated, but the work she’s allowed to participate in finds her making some breakthroughs and it’s ultimately her instinct that does help to solve the case. As a long time cop, her radar for liars is pretty strongly honed.

The working dynamic between her and the detective she encountered in the last novel is fun (for the reader), though for the two of them it’s more of a getting to know and trust the other situation. Brilliant move on Stewart Taylor’s part to take this series back to a new origin story, something which always energizes a novel.
This book has a great and well told story that propels the book in a rocket powered fashion. Maggie’s personal life is more back burner, the investigation more front and center. It feels like a comfortable fit. The illumination of Dublin and its various neighborhoods is exceptionally well done, and I really felt like I had a bird’s eye view. This is an excellent read.

I love the Maggie D'Arcy series, so it's no surprise that I enjoyed this fourth installment. Even with the disturbing content, I still found A STOLEN CHILD to be an engrossing, twisty, entertaining read. Maggie is a likable heroine as she's smart, brave, compassionate, and devoted to both her job and her family. The plot moves along swiftly, with plenty of twists and turns to keep the reader's attention. I didn't see the murderer coming and was, in fact, fooled by more than one red herring. I like a mystery that keeps me guessing, which is just one of the many reasons I'm a fan of this series. I'll absolutely be reading the next book. And the next. And the next...