The Winter Guest

 The Winter Guest- W. C. Ryan

Arcade Crimewise

Release Dare: October 4, 2022

Rating: 📚📚📚📚📚

Synopsis: January 1921. Though the Great War is over, in Ireland a new civil war is raging. The once-grand Kilcolgan House, a crumbling bastion shrouded in sea mist, lies half empty and filled with ghosts, both real and imagined, while it shelters the surviving members of the Prendeville family. Then, when an IRA ambush goes terribly wrong, Maud Prendeville, Lord Kilcolgan’s eldest daughter, is killed, leaving the family reeling. Yet the IRA column behind the attack insists they left her alive, that someone else must be responsible for her terrible fate. Captain Tom Harkin, an IRA intelligence officer and Maud's former fiancé, is sent to investigate. He becomes an unwelcome guest in this strange, gloomy household.

Working undercover, Harkin must delve into the house's secrets—and discover where, in this fractured, embattled town, allegiances truly lie. But Harkin too is haunted by the ghosts of the past and by his terrible experiences on the battlefields. Can he find the truth about Maud's death before the past—and his strange, unnerving surroundings—overwhelm him?

The Winter Guest is a gripping and immersive read for fans of classic mysteries by the likes of Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers along with Charles Todd’s Ian Rutledge series, Ann Cleeves, and Jacqueline Winspear.

________________________________________________________________________

Former Army Captain Tom Harkin survived World War I damaged in mind and spirit only to return to an Ireland still wracked by active war. Many thought they would win Home Rule in the trenches of Europe, now the IRA fight guerrilla war against the English daily on Irish soil. When Tom, now an IRA intelligence officer, hears that his former fiancee Maud Prendeville was murdered in an IRA ambush gone wrong just outside her own home, he agrees to go to her funeral and investigate. But no one wants him asking questions: not the family living in the crumbling mansion; not the IRA, who claim they killed two of the people in the car but left Maud alive; and definitely not the English 'police' who are blaming the IRA for all the deaths. Amid family secrets and political secrets, fears, and ghosts both real and psychological, Harkin must tread carefully to protect his own secrets and try to uncover the truth behind Maud's death.

Tom Harkin is both likable and highly sympathetic main character. His flashbacks and PTSD are heartbreaking, his desire to find the truth behind Maud's death despite the danger to his own life is commendable, and his honesty in acknowledging that he doesn't really know how to investigate murder, especially in his condition, is refreshing for an amateur detective. The atmosphere is a constant presence without being too heavy handed: the grey skies, bleakness and rundown nature of the landscape are a perfect mirror for the Troubles the Irish people are living through, just as the crumbling Kilgolan house mirrors the family living in it. 

I was lucky enough to discover W.C. Ryan's first book, House of Ghosts, when it first came out and I've been watching for a new Ryan  book ever since. And finally, one has arrived! While very different from House of Ghosts, readers won't be disappointed: Ryan has once again combined elements of psychological suspense with postwar trauma, and a touch of the supernatural to create an engrossing and compelling murder mystery. Readers who don't want the supernatural with their murders won't find the ghost aspect overwhelming and those who do like it will find the ghosts add just an edge of supernatural atmosphere to an already atmospheric story.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review