Good Red Herring

By Susan Maxwell

Hibernia Altera: Muinbeo Chronicles #1

N.B. This book isn't self published—it was published by Little Island. I'm putting it here for the sake of completeness and because it starts off a series.

“Some of these stories really started decades, generations, ago, and now come to their close. New things begin to arise from the past, like phoenix feathers separating from the flame. The winding down of the old stories and the starting of the new arose from a death; a murder, if you will believe such wickedness. We warn you. We are the last—eh—people to pretend that Muinbeo is some kind of Island of the Blessed.”

Those enigmatic entities, the Storytellers of Muinbeo, know that History has something waiting in the wings. To set the scene for their audience, they relate a gripping tale about a death and its consequences.

When her mentor is bitten by a rogue werewolf and “joins our hairy brethren howling at the moon”, apprentice detective Salmon Farsade is assigned to Hal McCabe, Detective Chief-Inspector and vampire, just in time for a murder.

Fen Maguire has been stabbed, throwing the normally peaceful community of Ballinpooka into shock. The investigation into her death lifts the lid on more than just the name of her killer: political corruption, Outland conspiracy, academic deceit, and plain old-fashioned greed. A second murder follows: the clock is ticking, and as they seek a key to unlock the truth, the detectives are both helped and hindered by the various human and not-so-human beings that populate Muinbeo.

For readers of all ages.