meganbmoore | Oh Danny Boy by Rhys Bowen (Reply)

At the end of her rope due to too many complications in her life-all of them of the male persuasion-Molly Murphy is considering calling the private investigator business quits and going off to be a schoolteacher far away from it all. Her Bohemian friends, fearful of being deprived of their favorite adopted child (who is in her twenties, but that isn’t important to them), naturally object to this. Her plans are put on hold, however, when the longest running and most complicated of her suitors, police captain Daniel Sullivan, is accused of taking bribes from the mob, and he asks her to clear his name. This leads to Molly looking into the two cases Daniel was working on-racehorse doping and a serial killer mimicking Jack the Ripper-and eventually to her taking another commission from a very unexpected quarter.

I really liked this one. I’ve liked all the Molly Murphy mysteries, but I especially liked this one.

First of all, Arabella. I’ve been annoyed with how she’s been portrayed as an evil, grasping female the whole time, especially since reports of her behavior seemed more extreme than the behavior itself. Here, she was more like my initial impression of her, which was that she was basically nice, but well aware of her class, and used to getting her way. I much prefer her and Molly as almost-but-not-quite friends who are in agreement that Daniel is a loser.

And we had a female police officer! A legitimate historical one! I sincerely hope she returns. We also had Sid and Gus helping Molly with her investigations, which I very much hope we get more of.

Finally, I wasn’t surprised that Molly ended up pregnant after the last book, but I’m very impressed that Bowen had her realistically considering an abortion, even though a miscarriage was going to be the obvious outcome. Of course, there’s no way the publisher would have allowed Molly to go through with it, even if Bowen had wanted to, but I was happy to see it portrayed as the smart thing for a woman in her position (single, without family, and the father in jail) to do.