A Stolen Child--A Maggie D'arcy Mystery

January 1, 2023

An Edmund White Award winner for her debut, Alcestis, Beutner draws on the actual 1897 disappearance of a Mount Holyoke student in Killingly, a gothic tale that plumbs missing Bertha's secrets and those of her loner friend, Agnes. Best-selling historical fiction pro Davis goes Spectacular in 1950s New York, where newbie Rockette Marion Brooks joins with Peter Griggs--a mental health specialist promoting psychological profiling--to help the police investigate a series of bombings that have shaken the city. In Edgar Award-winning Doiron's Dead Man's Wake, Maine Game Warden Investigator Mike Bowditch witnesses a hit-and-flee speedboat plowing into two swimmers and suspects murder when he learns that the victims were a badly slashed up man and his married lover (100,000-copy first printing). A troubled soul in high school, Wilfred "Wil" Threadgill returns to town as a major music star, but in the New York Times best-selling James's Hiss Me Deadly he's getting threats that lead to a band member's death and sets librarian Charlie Harris and bewhiskered kitty Diesel into action; originally scheduled for March 2022. Proprietor of a busy food stand at Taipei's largest night market, Jing-nan gets framed for several big-news murders unfolding during the Austronesian Cultural Festival in Lin's Death Doesn't Forget. After a first outing in Schellman's Suspense Magazine best-booked The Body in the Garden, Vivian Kelly returns in The Last Drop of Hemlock, now working full-time at the freewheeling speakeasy the Nightingale and determined to investigate the poisoning of doorman Pearlie, incongruously ruled a suicide (40,000-copy first printing). Long Island homicide detective-turned-Garda officer in Dublin, Ireland, Taylor's Maggie D'arcy is brought in on a case using her detective skills to locate the Stolen Child of a murdered model (50,000-copy first printing).

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Starred review from April 17, 2023
The opening to Stewart Taylor’s stellar fourth Maggie D’Arcy adventure (after 2022’s The Drowning Sea) finds the former Long Island detective back in uniform, having joined the Dublin police force so she can begin a new life in Ireland with her boyfriend and daughter. While responding to the murder of a reality TV star, Maggie and her new partner realize they’d responded to a call at the same location a few days earlier, only to have the victim send them away. Wracked with guilt and questioning whether she should have pressed further during her first call, Maggie learns that the victim also has a young child who’s gone missing. With most of Maggie’s colleagues consumed by another high-profile murder, Maggie heads up both the homicide and missing child investigations, eventually leading an extensive—and increasingly dangerous—nationwide hunt for the killer. Stewart Taylor keeps the plot tight and makes satisfying links between the two major cases, but her particular skill lies in the psychological depth with which she draws Maggie and her home life. Readers will be eager to follow the detective’s future Irish exploits. Agent: Esmond Harmsworth, Aevitas Creative Management.

May 15, 2023
A newly minted Garda helps solve a highly publicized case. After years as a detective on Long Island, Maggie D'arcy has relocated to Dublin to live with her boyfriend and train for the Garda. Given all her experience, she's frustrated to be on street patrol, but DI Roly Byrne, whom she'd worked with on several cases before becoming a Garda, wants to expedite her move to detective. Her chance comes when a woman is murdered and her child stolen in the neighborhood patrolled by Maggie and her partner, Jason Savage. Jade Elliott was a gorgeous young model who got pregnant and kept now-2-year-old Laurel but refused to stay with the father, Dylan Maguire, a well-to-do older man who still pays her bills. Finding phone numbers for Dylan and Jade's sister and mother, Maggie and Jason call around, but none of them have Laurel. Because the crime took place in Maggie's area, Byrne gets her temporarily assigned to the case, whose combination of a missing toddler and a murdered beauty has provoked a nationwide sensation. Using her nose for sleuthing, Maggie follows up numerous leads and turns up some clues, but Laurel remains missing. Jade, who had made some dicey connections in her modeling career, had a mother with mental health issues and an older sister who wasn't up to helping out. Maggie senses that the sister is hiding something and also suspects Dylan, who has a solid alibi but gives off an odd vibe. Some old-fashioned police work, luck, and hunches will lead to a killer. Characters you care about plunged into mysterious circumstances.

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Starred review from April 1, 2023

Maggie D'arcy resigned from her job as a homicide detective on Long Island and moved to Dublin, Ireland, with her daughter. A year and a half later, she's completed her time at Garda Training College, but despite her long career, she's back to walking a beat with a partner. When they're called for a domestic dispute on a Saturday night, the woman who answers the door reports nothing wrong. Several days later, though, they arrive at the same apartment, where Jade Elliott has been murdered. While they wait for the Garda's criminal investigation team to show up, Maggie realizes there are signs of a child, but no little one on site. The murder of Jade, a former model, will make the news, but the priority is the nationwide hunt for her two-year-old, Laurel. Maggie's friend, Detective Inspector Roly Byrne, pulls her onto his team to assist with the case. She's frustrated to be relegated to minor tasks, but she's present for every twist and turn in the case, complicated by the cover-ups from the victim's family and friends. VERDICT The follow-up to The Drowning Sea takes the series in a new direction; it's a step-by-step riveting police procedural filled with red herrings.--Lesa Holstine

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