The Unquiet Grave by Dervla McTiernan sees the return of detective Cormac Reilly along with his partner Peter Fisher, who I recall featured prominently in the last book in the series The Good Turn. Here McTiernan again throws in several plots for the price of one, mostly unconnected but all as intriguing as the main investigation involving a body in a bog. And no, NOT a typo with me erroneously typing BOG instead of BAG, and... also not something I have the chance to say often! (Also googles 'bog' to check exactly what it means.)

As someone who quite enjoys random facts I was fascinated by some of the details McTiernan throws in here, like a bog's ability to preserve a body. It's because of the peat... or something. Anyhoo this bog body belonged to the local principal who seemingly disappeared suddenly.

As usual we spend some time with Cormac and Peter on the case, the former being forced to realise here he's treading water and not really getting on with his life. As the book opens he gets a job offer to head up the police complaints team (akin to Internal Affairs). He's reluctant as it'd further alienate him from his counterparts, but he realises he needs the change. Even more so when he learns Peter intends to move to Australia. Also confronting here, his ex Emma reappears, resplendent with a baby bump and a missing husband. Unable to turn Emma down he agrees to help and reach out to connections at Interpol to track her husband's whereabouts.

We also spend some time with Cecilia, a neighbour of the missing principal and an artist returned home to look after her dying mother. It's obvious she's keeping secrets but McTiernan again does an excellent job at revealing them in fits and starts so we're also kept guessing for some time. There are also varying accounts of the principal who reportedly had a bit of a chip on his shoulder and got some pleasure out of doling out petty punishments to students he disliked.

Also in the mix is a menacing voice and again McTiernan keeps us in the dark before we start to see where he fits into the mire of happenings here. I liked where she takes the plot threads and am intrigued as to what comes next (for McTiernan whose 2024 standalone What Happened to Nina? I ADORED!) but also for Cormac, in his new role and perhaps even for Peter who's heading off (like McTiernan herself) to West Australia!

When a German tourist visiting Galway in Ireland, finds a body in a bog, Detective Cormac Reilly expects it will turn out to be a historical find, especially as there are signs of ritual mutilation on the body. However, it turns out to be that of a local school teacher and it’s only the first of three similar murders that Cormac and Garda Peter Fisher will have to investigate.

As if he doesn’t have enough on his hands, Cormac’s Ex, Emma has reappeared asking him for help finding her husband who went missing in Paris. In what seems to be an unrelated story line, a man is planning to use a loophole he’s discovered to defraud the national lottery. Somehow Dervla McTiernan manages to keep us engaged with all these separate story lines, masterfully weaving them into a whole and bringing them to a stunning conclusion. With clever twists and tricky wrong turns, she has woven a complex, thrilling mystery with very human characters, juggling their own conflicts and consciences.

I read this as a buddy ready with a good friend of mine and we both thoroughly enjoyed it. It was our first Cormac Reilly book but that hindered us a little bit, but we didn't let it stop us. I really liked Abigail's character, and I'd like to see some more of her in the future. I reckon she could be a bit of an underdog. I despised Carl. That's all I'm saying about him.

Dervla is my favourite. What happened to Nina was one of my best reads of last year. The Cormac Riley series is amazing the first two were incredibly gripping however I didn't engage as much with the 3rd book so I wasn't sure how this one would go but I loved it! Emma having a new husband and reaching out to Cormac was not on my bingo card but I really loved the story line. Multiple murders and the international aspect really added layers to the story!

Well preserved bodies, some hundreds of years old have been found in the boglands in Ireland. These bodies have sometimes been subject to terrible injuries and torture. When a body is found in a bog in Galway, the police initially suspect it has been there for many years.  However they soon discover it is actually the body of a local school principal who went missing approximately 2 years previously.  Cormac is assigned to investigate who is responsible for this death and why the body was left so mutilated.  As if he doesn't have enough to keep him busy, Cormac's ex-girlfriend comes to him requesting his help to find her husband who had gone missing in Paris.  The French police are not taking her concerns seriously and she is frantic to find him.

While trying to juggle an investigation which is going nowhere and help his ex at the same time, 2 further bodies turn up in bogs and the pressure is on Cormac to determine who they are and whether all 3 murders are connected in some way. 

This book is McTiernan's latest in her Cormac Reilly series.  I love a good crime story with multiple stories that leave you wondering whether they are all connected.  There is enough mystery to keep you wondering where the stories are headed and they're all concluded in a satisfying and believable way.  The plot is well-paced with a few twists to keep you wondering and a few nasty characters that you hope get what they deserve.  I really enjoyed this book which kept me engaged and wanting to continue to read it to the end.  A definite recommendation.

Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins Publishers Australia for my opportunity to read and review this book.

For years the bogland of Northern Europe have given up bodies of the long-deceased. Bodies that are thousands of years old, strangely preserved and have injuries that suggest ritualistic torture and sacrifice.

When a corpse is found in a bog in Galway, Cormac Reilly is on the case and he is soon digging into the life of Thaddeus Grey, a secondary school principal who disappeared two decades prior.

The case is slow going, until more murders start showing up and while Cormac wonders if the bodies are connected, there is now a race against the clock to catch the murderer before they strike again.

I loved this book and the historic, ritualistic nature of the bog bodies was the perfect scenery for a spate of weird murders. Having heard Dervla McTiernan speak on this book last night, it was so interesting to hear how her own experiences of the bogs in Galway influenced her in writing this story.

The pace of this book was enjoyable and I love the journey that the story takes the reader, not just through the possible suspects but also into the history of the area and the people who still live there.

This is only my second Cormac Reilly book and these can definitely be read as a standalone or out of order so definitely one to pick up!

Honestly, Dervla McTiernan is such a master at this.

I love this series. I knew it’d been a while since the previous and I’d started to wonder if we were going to get any more books in the Cormac Reilly series so seeing this one was such a nice surprise! I had forgotten exactly where I left Cormac after book #3 so some things in this – they were a surprise to me.

There are several stories happening in this book and for a while, it’s a mystery how some of them will come together. But they do and the blending is masterful. It shows such skill to be able to take these things and weave them together in a way that feels seamless and makes sense. The book opens with a bored German teenager on holidays in Ireland with her parents. Her dad wants to do a time honoured tradition of collecting sod from the bog marshes and she wanders off – only to discover a body. The bogs have sometimes, delivered long dead bodies from their depths but this is not that. Another thread follows a truly odious man who believes he has a foolproof plan to defraud his workplace. As well as that, Cormac finds himself dealing with a request from someone who used to be in his personal life and the complications that come from having them around again. He wants to do the right thing and help but he’s aware that he might also be slightly too attached. There’s also some stuff going on with Peter, Cormac’s policing partner as well.

All of these things feel so random and at odds with each other to begin with. They’re all intriguing in their own right – who is the dead body, will this gross man get what he deserves, what is going on with the person that is personally connected to Cormac….etc. I found this really hard to put down, each new development brought a more interesting twist.

Although I’d forgotten something about Cormac’s personal life, I hadn’t forgotten the challenges he had faced in his professional life and they are also continuing to be threaded through this story. This book brings an opportunity for Cormac, he’s chosen for something that he feels he could be good at although he also knows that it could alienate him even further and in more ways. He knows that ultimately, people he likes and respects might not want to work with him because of it. I would love to see this series continue on with Cormac taking this role and really getting to sink his teeth into some interesting scenarios that are bound to occur.

I really like Cormac as a lead character, he’s very methodical and quite unflappable – or even when he is troubled, he is able to set it aside and still focus on what is important and that is solving the case. He is often frustrated at ways in which lazy policing still exists and we see a couple of examples here as well as someone who comes in and wants to take over and stymie Cormac’s investigation or have him refocus when Cormac is sure he should be looking in a certain direction. He’s also being pulled in different directions with the thing he is investigating “off the record” which proved to play out in an interesting way as well. We got to see a little of Cormac’s family and what he’s like when he’s not at work.

This was a really good, solid read….but I have to admit, where it got me, where it got elevated to that next level for me, was the ending. It was so good and it was so unexpected and I did not see that coming at all. From any direction. And it will have consequences that won’t be blatantly obvious if there are future books, but it’ll always be there, I think, in Cormac’s mind and memories.

I loved this. This series is just so good. I really hope there’s more.

9/10

My April highlight! Loved and absolutely tore through. The Unquiet Grave had multiple POVs which were superbly interwoven. I kept wondering just how their stories would come together but they did so brilliantly.

Also, the bog bodies were fascinating! My heart was in my mouth numerous times. A wonderful crime thriller.

This was actually my first venture into both Dervla McTiernan’s work and the Cormac world so it can definitely be read as a standalone. I’ll be very eagerly seeking out the earlier instalments to dive into the backgrounds of the main characters.

Book 4 in the Cormac Reilly series and it’s excellent! A body found in a bog;a guy who works for the national lottery planning to hack the system to win; the husband of Emma, Cormac’s ex has gone missing. These apparently unrelated threads are brought together in a skilful way making another great read.

EXCERPT: Leonie turned and walked away. Still the rain fell. Behind her she could hear her father explaining (for what was easily the third time) everything he'd learned about turf cutting over the past twenty-four hours. Leonie wanted to tell him that anyone could google, that reading a Wikipedia entry didn't make him an expert. Instead she kept walking away, even though there was nowhere she could go. Her father had they key to the house, and they were miles from anywhere, with no buses.
She walked deeper into the bog, until her father's voice was muffled and distant. The ground around her changed. There were trenches now, filled with water, either side of where she was walking. The land was thick with reeds, springy and squelchy underfoot. There was a smell too. Earthy. Damp. It wasn't unpleasant.
As Leonie walked, a large bird with a white band around its neck burst, with a squawk of protest, from the reeds a couple of metres in front of her. Leonie took a startled step sideways, and sank up to her knee in cold, dirty water.
Sheiβe.
Water seeped into her left boot and the ground sucked at her leg. She tried and failed to pull her boot out of the mud. It was completely stuck.
Verdammte sheiβe.
Leonie pulled her leg from the boot, then sat on a solidish patch of ground and wrenched her boot from the mud as the backside of her jeans rapidly soaked though. She emptied the water from the boot, and as she tugged it back on, something caught her eye. Just up ahead there was a trench filled with murky water, and something was floating in it. Something odd. Leonie squinted, leaning forward to try to make out the mystery object. She stood up, rubbing her now dirty hands on her jeans, and took a careful half-step forward, then stopped. Her stomach clenched. She tried to tell herself that what she was looking at was an animal, but the lie bounced off, useless against hard reality. What she was seeing was a human back, a curved spine, and a tangles mess that was human hair.

ABOUT 'THE UNQUIET GRAVE': Every grave has a story ...
For years the boglands of Northern Europe have given up bodies of the long-deceased. Bodies that are thousands of years old, uncannily preserved. Bodies with strange injuries that suggest ritual torture and human sacrifice.

When a corpse is found in a bog in Galway, Cormac Reilly assumes the find is historical. But closer examination reveals a more recent story. The dead man is Thaddeus Grey, a local secondary school principal who disappeared two years prior.

There's nothing in Grey's past that would explain why he was murdered, or why his body was mutilated in a ritual manner. At first, progress on the case is frustratingly slow and Cormac struggles to keep his mind on the job. His ex-girlfriend, Emma Sweeney, is in trouble, and she's reached out to him for help - Emma's new husband has gone missing in Paris, and the French police are refusing to open an investigation into his disappearance.

Cormac is sure that he has found Grey's killer, and is within hours of an arrest, when another mutilated body is discovered on the other side of the country. Two days later, a third body is found. Press attention is intense. Is there a serial killer at work in Ireland? Has Cormac been on the wrong trail? And if so, can he find the murderer before they strike again?

MY THOUGHTS: Dervla McTiernan has hit another one out of the park! She has skillfully woven several storylines together into a stunning and thought-provoking climax.

I love the way McTiernan always manages to keep me on the back foot. I have given up trying to solve Cormac's cases and just go along for the extremely challenging and equally enjoyable ride.

The plot in The Unquiet Grave is nothing short of brilliant - complex and brilliant. You'll need to keep your wits about you. There are twists, red herrings, dead ends and some superb detecting. Cormac is torn between two cases, one of which is not official but is close to his heart, and Peter takes matters into his own hands when he believes justice is not being done. I have to admit, I was rather shocked by this. Happy, gratified, but definitely shocked.

Both Cormac and Peter are destined for new paths in their careers, but I can't help wondering just what McTiernan has up her sleeve. In other words, bring on Cormac Reilly #5. And sooner rather than later please.

I was able to combine reading with listening to The Quiet Grave, written by Dervla McTiernan and superbly narrated by Aoife McMahon, who is one of my favorite narrators.

⭐⭐⭐⭐.5

#TheUnquietGrave #NetGalley

MEET THE AUTHOR: Before turning her hand to writing, Dervla spent twelve years working as a lawyer in her home country of Ireland. Following the global financial crisis, she relocated to Western Australia where she now lives with her husband, two children and too many pets.

DISCLOSURE: Thank you to Harper Collins Publishers Australia via NetGalley for providing both an e-ARC and an audio ARC of The Unquiet Grave by Dervla McTiernan for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

Firstly, bog bodies and bodies trapped under glaciers are somehow always interesting additions to a crime story whether recent or historical so the initial start provides that great backdrop of intrigue that makes me as the reader, curious!

The other day when I started reading “The Unquiet grave” … i posted on instagram what it feels like when you have “that moment when you start reading a book by an author you love … and it feels like coming home”. When I start reading a book by Dervla McTiernan i have that sense of familiarity knowing there will be a good story, great characters and excellent writing and this latest book provides all of this including multiple storyline’s that worked so well together.

Cormac is always such an interesting and complex character; add to that the return of other familiar characters all with their own new stories and directions there is lots to keep readers engaged. In another author’s hands there may have been too many stories taking place and yet somehow Dervla makes this work.

With a few shocks, some very nasty people (some are totally shudder worthy!), multiple unexpected complications around job positions, and other twists and turns the book provides layers of complications to work through which add to the enjoyment.

So thankful I was able to read an advanced copy of this book … something i never imagined i would get to do when I first “met” Cornac. I hope to read more about him soon 😍

4.5⭐⭐⭐⭐⚡

The Cormac Reilly series is one of my favourite crime fiction series. I am so glad Dervla McTiernan has given us a fourth book to add to this series.

As well as the investigation, Cormac and his work partner Peter are both thinking of changing directions with their careers, which leads to some distractions and one very bad decision. Emma, Cormac's ex, comes to him for help, pulling him away from the case as well as making him revisit the decisions he made that ended their relationship. It also makes him take a look at where he is in his life and where he wants to go.

There are a lot of threads in this novel and a lot of characters to keep track of. I did find this difficult a few times to remember who was who and which thread they were attached to, but ultimately they all came together in a very satisfactory way.

I wonder if Cormac's new job will bring us more books or if this is the end for Cormac Reilly. I'd also love to see Peter in his new position in Australia. I think that would make a great spin-off.

Thanks to NetGalley for this electronic advanced readers copy! I have read and enjoyed all of Dervla’s stand alone thrillers and this is my first of the Cormac Reilly series but definitely won’t be the last! I feel like you can read this as a standalone but I will go back and read the others to ensure I haven’t missed any subtleties such as around character background and development.
A great thriller- full of suspense, atmosphere (a big part of a good thriller to me) and an enthralling story line.

The Unquiet Grave
Dervla McTiernan

Cormac Reilly is back in the fourth instalment. For years the bog lands of Northern Europe have given up bodies of the long deceased, thousands of years old but uncannily preserved. When a corpse is found in a bog in Galway, it’s assumed it’s a historical body reemerged. Closer inspection reveals a more recent story. The dead man is Thaddeus Grey who had disappeared two years prior and nothing in Grey’s past would explain why he was murdered, or why his body was mutilated in a ritual manner.

Concurrently Cormac’s ex-girlfriend Emma Sweeney is reaching out for his help; her new husband has gone missing in Paris.

When Cormac is sure that he has found Grey’s killer, and within hours of an arrest, another mutilated body is discovered. Two days later a third body is found.

With bodies stacking up, and intense media attention, Cormac must find the murderer before they strike again. There’s plenty of moving parts in this book and never a dull moment. I really enjoyed this and the way the answers are revealed was perfectly executed. I really enjoyed Cormac’s no fuss approach to policing and the logical conclusions he draws.

‘Plenty of time to prepare, to write little scripts and practice them but she had no idea what it would actually be like to sit opposite those two men with their keen assessing eyes and lie to their faces. The friendlier of them was the most dangerous, you could fall for his warmth very easily, start thinking of him as someone you could lean on when really he was out to gut you.’

(Review posted 23rd April 2025).

The Unquiet Grave is a mystery/thriller book written by Dervla McTiernan, following Irish detective, Cormac Reilly. This is the fourth book in the Cormac Reilly series and follows the detective after a body was found in an Irish bog by an unsuspecting family. While investigating the body in the bog, 2 more bodies appear, leading Detective Cormac Reilly to question whether the murders are a result of a new serial killer galavanting in Ireland.

Thrillers are not the main genre I read but when I do pick one up, I thoroughly enjoy it and The Unquiet Grave was no exception. Dervla McTiernan created the perfect setting as a backdrop for these murders to take place, Ireland. The constant rain and storm provided the story with a creepy, eerie atmosphere that really kept me gripped the whole way.

There are a few characters we are following in The Unquiet Grave, but the main protagonist, Cormac Reilly, really pushes the story along. Seeing him interact with all the other characters and the pasts he shares with certain people was so interesting, and his thoughts and feelings were so complex. I think the glimpses we got into other characters POV’s was a great way to keep the story feeling fresh, while still favouring the main plot line.

The ending of this book was a little rushed but I feel most mystery/thrillers normally are because there is not much to explore after you found the criminal. I will say there were a few twists I did not seeing coming but when looking back at the story makes perfect sense.

The Unquiet Grave is definitely a book I would recommend to any mystery/thriller lover who love to dissect each little detail and try to figure out the ending before it happens, but also anyone who wants to get into mystery/thriller’s as the writing style is very digestible and the plot is very easy to follow along with.

Top class Dervla McTiernan, I shouldn't have started this so late as I devoured it in one sitting and will have regrets in the morning. Dervla's writing at it's best, and I've read them all - no matter how she feels about revisiting the same characters after years, this is really where her writing talent lies.

When a body is pulled out of a bog, at first it seems like an archaeological finding except for a very obvious clue. Seemingly a ritualistic murder, Cormac is on the case and it's going nowhere fast.

Meanwhile, Emma's husband is missing and there's a lottery fixing plot happening in another part of the country. How are all these occurrences linked and who really killed the body in the bog?

I loved this right up until the character assassination at the end. Not sure what Dervla is trying to say about the Australian police force there. I think the point of the whole novel is, "Do we really know anyone as well as we think?"

The discovery of a mutilate body in the bog turns out to be the body of the local secondary school principal who disappeared two years ago. Soon there’s another mutilated body, and later a third body is discovered. Cormac Reilly and Peter Fisher find themselves investigating multiple murders which may or may not be linked. Either ways there’s serious pressure to solve these murders.

In the midst of the murder investigations, Cormac’s former girlfriend Emma Sweeney is back in contact needing his help. Years after their breakup, her husband has gone missing in Paris and she needs his help to get answers…

Throughout this Cormac is contemplating a promotion he’s been offered. This promotion to Inspector, would be to head up the Complaints section, a job policing the police. A promotion which comes with complications…

The Unquiet Grave is fast paced, full of twists and turns, suspense and intrigue!

This is my second McTiernan story but my first in the Cormac Reilly series. There's clearly relational continuity in the series, some of the background of which I've missed not having read the earlier stories, but the plot is a new one.

McTiernan is a great storyteller. Her stories are tight and even though there are multiple sub-plots in this one, they mostly weren't a distraction and keep the reader guessing as to how McTiernan will bring them together in the end.

I like Cormac Reilly. He's an average Irish bloke, living a quiet life in Galway. However, he's a smart experienced detective who is trusted by his superiors and junior officers. He's also a dedicated brother and uncle which is a nice touch.

In this story he's called to investigate a 2 year old murder, the body of the victim found in a remarkably good condition in a 'bog' which Ireland appears to be well known for. Reilly struggles to find a suspect and he gets drawn into a separate missing persons case of his ex-girlfriend, Emma. Her husband Finn, has mysteriously disappeared. Finn's a crack cybersecurity expert working for a company that specialises in providing such solutions to Governments and corporates.

It's challenging to understand whether there's any connection between the two cases or if there's meant to be. Things get even more interesting when another plot is introduced. Carl Rigney is a cybersecurity expert too and he works for the lotteries. We quickly establish that Carl is a sociopath and concocts a wild plan of rigging the lottery. However, he needs an accomplice. Once again, we're struggling to understand if this plot has anything to do with Reilly's murder case.

McTiernan juggles the three plots brilliantly even though I found having two cybersecurity experts in the one story a little coincidental. But, I guess it is a growth industry so increasingly we'll meet more of them in future stories.

McTiernan pulls it all together in the last fifty or so pages and I must admit I was a little surprised by a number of the outcomes which is always a good thing as a reader.

As other reviewers who are new to the Cormac Reilly series have stated, I'm definitely interested in going back to read the first three in the series.

I feel fortunate to have received an early ebook version of the story from Harper Collins Australia via NetGalley. I read it using the NG App which is always an enjoyable experience. This has had no bearing on my review.

The Unquiet Grave is the fourth novel in the Cormac Reilly series by Irish-born Australian author, Dervla McTiernan. DS Cormac Reilly and Garda Peter Fisher are called away from reading the riot act to a harassing ex-husband when a body is discovered in a bog near Monivea.

While the body displays some unusual mutilations, police pathologist Dr Yvonne Connelly quickly disabuses them of the notion that it is an ancient bog body: this is a recent murder victim. Follow up with the current owner of the bog field and the attached cottage reveal that the tenant of that cottage went missing two years earlier. Might this be local secondary school headmaster, Thaddeus Grey?

As Cormac and Peter try to learn what they can about him, many they speak to depict him as a strict authoritarian who wasn’t well-liked, but the one parent who confronted him has an ironclad alibi. Two years on, the students he picked on most are at college or on an Asian gap year, and not responding to calls and messages: are they being evasive, or just typically self-absorbed teens?

Distracting Cormac from the case is the Commissioner of the Garda Siochana’s urging that he apply for promotion to Inspector: Kevin Matheson needs him to head up the Complaints section of Gardai’s Internal Affairs, investigating other garda when warranted. It would mean less time in the field, more time behind a desk, and would make him even less popular. But the role needs someone who believes in it, and Cormac is probably that man.

Also distracting him is the visit from his ex-girlfriend, Emma Sweeney, now married and pregnant. Emma begs for his help in finding her husband, Finn O’Ceallaigh, a fifteen-year Irish Army veteran who failed to return home from Paris on the previous Friday evening. The Gardai have no jurisdiction in Paris, while the French police have a policy of not actively searching for missing adults, leaving Emma feeling helpless. Of course, Cormac will do what he can, call in favours from influential friends.

When two more bodies turn up in bogs in quick succession, the case is handed to a young Dublin DI more determined to track down a serial killer than listen to input from his team, even though there are some significant differences between how the bodies have been damaged. And after a slow start, Cormac finally has strong suspicions about who murdered Grey, if only the DI would let him go back to Galway for a face-to-face interview…

With this fourth instalment, McTiernan yet again gives the reader a terrific dose of fast-paced crime fiction: an excellent plot, twists and red herrings to keep the reader guessing, an exciting climax or two (Peter gets to be a hero), and a very satisfying resolution. Luckily this is fiction, so the reader can darkly delight in the way a certain nasty character is meted out just deserts. With each instalment, McTiernan develops her regular characters a little further and adds new ones. It will be interesting to see what’s in store for Cormac. Irish crime fiction at its best.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Harper Collins Australia

Dervla McTiernan burst onto the Australian crime writing scene with her multi-award winning debut The Rúin. That book introduced readers to Irish policeman Cormac Reilly and his complicated life. Riley would return in The Scholar and The Good Turn in which his world became even more complicated. While not exactly settled, The Good Turn left Reilly in a reasonable place that could possibly have been the end of the series. McTiernan went on to write two US-based novels - The Murder Rule and What Happened to Nina? – but has now returned to the world of Cormac Reilly with The Unquiet Grave.
The cold open of The Unquiet Grave is particularly cold. A family of German tourists who have inherited a small house near Galway are out in a bog, digging out peat in the rain when they stumble across a floating body. This brings in Cormac Reilly and his offsider Peter Fisher who soon find that the dead man is a missing school principal who was not well liked. At the same time Cormac is contacted by his ex-girlfriend Emma, now married and pregnant, whose husband has disappeared while working in France. And in a seemingly unrelated thread that eventually becomes very relevant, distinctly unlikeable computer programmer Carl is thinking about a way he can rig the lottery.
As with previous books in this series, in The Unquiet Grave, McTiernan delivers a great mix of the personal and the professional in Reilly and Fisher. Reilly finds himself being offered a promotion that he is not sure he wants, is dealing with regret when having to support Emma and feels betrayed by Peter Fisher’s alternative career plans. All of this means he cannot give his full attention to the murder investigation which allows it to spiral a little until he manages to bring it all together. And both Reilly and McTiernan do end up bringing all of the strands of this novel together in a satisfying way.
The Unquiet Grave brings McTiernan back into her sweet spot – a series of puzzling mysteries, interesting central characters (and minor characters) with complex lives and plenty of Irish atmosphere. And an ending that has plenty of opportunity for more, including, possibly (finally?) an Australian connection.