The Mountains Wild by Sarah Stewart Taylor

This book comes out today (June 23)—don’t miss it!

Maggie D’arcy, a Long Island homicide detective is called to Ireland to assist on a case of a missing woman.  It’s Maggie’s second visit to Ireland, the first being when she went 23 years before to look for her cousin, Erin Flaherty, who had moved there and had then disappeared.  Back then, and currently, the Irish police believed that the cases were related to other missing woman cases where there was a possible two-week window to find the person before she was murdered.

Maggie goes with many conflicting feelings: leaving her young daughter at home, re-opening old wounds, fear for her uncle’s health as Erin’s case is again highlighted, seeing an Irishman who has never left her heart, and being the outsider who is not officially part of the investigation.  When she meets up with Roly Byrne, the detective from the case years ago, she meets up with a friend with whom she is now on equal footing after a successful career in homicide.  She works with Roly and with his new partner, Detective Garda Katya Grzeskiewicz, Griz for short (and for ease).

Maggie spends time between places in Dublin and south in the Wicklow Mountains where Erin was thought to have disappeared and where the current woman went missing while out hiking.  Searching through old case files, following new leads, retracing steps in Dublin and around Glenmalure, throwing around new ideas, setting up timelines and psychological profiles, Maggie keeps getting a little bit closer to understanding both her cousin and suspects, but she and Roly and Griz all wonder if it will be in time to save the current victim.

This is a really substantial, atmospheric addition to procedural-type mysteries.  The streets of Dublin and the wild beauty of the Wicklow Mountains are wonderfully described here in a story that alternates between 1993 and young Maggie and 2016 and the older, wiser, more hardened detective.  The result is a carefully rendered portrayal of a case that builds with suspense, surprises, and suppositions.  There are a couple great "oh no" moments and a brilliant twist with believable characters and unsavory secrets. 

Thanks to Edelweiss and Macmillan for an advance copy.

500 Miles from You by Jenny Colgan

Sometimes, we can be really distant from our understanding of ourselves, from the people we need and love, and from where we ought to be.  Jenny Colgan writes about this in fresh new ways in 500 Miles from You, the third book in her Scottish Bookshop series, but which can be read on its own. 

Lissa Westcott, a nurse practitioner liaison for the National Health Service, visits patients at home in the busy city of London.  She knows many of her patients well and treats them skillfully, often with humor, to encourage them to live more healthy lives.  On her way between patients one day, she witnesses the violent death of a teenage boy she knows when a car plows deliberately into a group of his friends.  Despite the help of her friends and employer, nothing seems to help her move past this trauma, until she is forced to take a leave and work for three months in a remote town in Scotland.

She trades places with an unknown colleague, Cormac MacPherson, also a nurse practitioner liaison in little Kirrinfief on the shores of Loch Ness.  Cormac, a former Army medic, is suggested for this exchange to broaden his nursing skills.  Neither is happy about the move, but they do an exact change—in jobs and in living arrangements—with Lissa moving into Cormac’s Highland cottage and Cormac taking Lissa’s small room in a group housing residence for hospital employees. 

Both discover that they are completely out of their elements, puzzled by the impersonal nature of the city (Cormac) and the closely monitored life of a small village (Lissa).  The loud, pollution-filled mayhem of London disturbs Cormac, and the quiet, idyllic lanes of Scotland do not sit well with Lissa at all.

They are forced to correspond—first through case notes, then with e-mails, moving into texts, as they share information on their patients and on the confounding people and places they encounter.  Slowly, they each develop an appreciation for the places they are in and learn and heal in heartwarming ways.

The Proclaimers song “(I’m Gonna Be) 500 Miles” is kind of the behind-the-scenes theme for this fun book, which is about a developing friendship and romance, but also a love letter to two disparate locations that are beautifully described.  Let Jenny Colgan’s new book take you away for an enjoyable armchair tour of Scotland and London and a surprising introduction to the life of a nurse. 

500 Miles from You is published on June 9.  Thanks to Harper Collins and Edelweiss for an advance copy.  Other books in this series are The Bookshop on the Corner and The Bookshop on the Shore.