Irish Need Not Apply
Inspector Michael Corravan is back in author Karen Odden’s Victorian mystery and second Inspector Corravan book, UNDER A VEILED MOON.
After solving the river murders while working for Scotland Yard the year before, Corravan is acting superintendent at Wapping River Police, not too far from the Irish district of Whitechapel, where he grew up.
When visiting Ma Doyle in Whitechapel—the woman who took him in as an orphan—Corravan discovers that someone is terrorizing the area, shooting people and looting stores. His adopted 19-year-old brother, Colin, has also fallen in with the wrong people—Corravan is worried that he’s working for an Irish crime boss named James McCabe, who runs the Cobbwaller gang. Corravan was once a member of a thieving gang, so he’s well aware of the danger involved.
There’s also a man’s murder to investigate.
Then the unthinkable happens. The coal carrier Bywell Castle rams into the pleasure steamer Princess Alice, sinking it and killing many of its more than 600 passengers. Working with his former Scotland Yard boss, Director Vincent, Corravan learns that all signs indicate the Irish caused the accident. Is it also related to the recent crash of a commuter train? And what does it have to do with the murdered man found nearby?
Corravan must investigate who caused the wreck and whether it was intentional, all while battling the rampant newspaper reporting that the crash resulted from the Irish waging war. Is there a plot to disrupt the moderate members of Parliament in restoring Irish Home Rule? Could there be such a profound hatred of the Irish to kill so many innocent people?
Read the rest of my review and interview with Karen Odden in The Big Thrill.
