A Turn for the Bad by Sheila Connolly

Item: A Turn for the Bad
Rating: 5
Author: BaronessMom

Posted June 22, 2023 by BaronessMom in Mystery, Review, Series / 0 Comments

A Turn for the Bad

by Sheila Connolly

Series: County Cork #4
Series Rating:

Published by Berkley on February 2, 2016
Genres: Cozy Mystery
Pages: 304
Format: Audible Audiobook, Audio CD, ebook, Kindle, Paperback
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Get Your Copy at: Amazon, Books-A-Million
Also in this series: Buried in a Bog, Cruel Winter , Scandal in Skibbereen, An Early Wake, Tied Up with A Bow, The Lost Traveller, Fatal Roots

The New York Times bestselling author of An Early Wake returns to Ireland where Sullivan’s Pub owner Maura Donovan gets mixed up with smugglers.
After calling Ireland home for six months, Boston expat Maura Donovan still has a lot to learn about Irish ways—and Sullivan’s Pub is her classroom. Maura didn’t only inherit a business, she inherited a tight-knit community. And when a tragedy strikes, it’s the talk of the pub. A local farmer, out for a stroll on the beach with his young son, has mysteriously disappeared. Did he drown? Kill himself? The child can say only that he saw a boat.
Everyone from the local gardai to the Coast Guard is scouring the Cork coast, but when a body is finally brought ashore, it’s the wrong man. An accidental drowning or something more sinister? Trusting the words of the boy and listening to the suspicions of her employee Mick that the missing farmer might have run afoul of smugglers, Maura decides to investigate the deserted coves and isolated inlets for herself. But this time she may be getting in over her head...

A Turn for the Bad by Sheila Connolly is a contradiction of right and wrong. It reminds us that the world isn’t just black and white, but there are many colors in between.

Will Maura find the clues to find John Tully?

Its fall in County Cork and Sullivan’s is slow until a man, John Tully, unknown to Maura, goes missing. Maura, our sleuth, immediately thinks of foul play. While everyone is searching for the missing man, people in the pub are talking. Then a body, not John Tully, is found floating in the ocean. There our mystery is set.

Gillian arrives from Dublin with news and that she needs to move out of the dairy barn as its being sold. As she’s no place to stay, Maura invites her to stay with her at the cottage. I like this idea as Maura spends a lot of time at the pub and in her own head. Having Gillian around for a short time will be good for Maura. It’s not a long-term solution to Gillian’s problem, but it will be grand for now.

Maura Donovan Update

We again see growth for Maura. She is stronger than she knows. I wish she would quit waiting for the other shoe to drop and enjoy life. There are so many positive things in her life. Sullivan’s is making money, and Old Mick left lots of room for improvement. All Maura needs to do is embrace the changes she wants.

Maura still hasn’t made up her mind about which of her love interests she cares for. Both of them play a big part in her life.

Five Stars

I enjoy following Maura’s story. My rating for A Turn for the Bad by Sheila Connolly is five stars. I highly recommend this book and series to all mystery fans.

County Cork Mysteries

Thank you for dropping by! I hope you enjoyed this review of A Turn for the Bad by Sheila Connolly.

Until the next time,

About Sheila Connolly

Connolly was born in Rochester, New York, and later lived in Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, California, and Massachusetts. In 1972, she graduated with honors from Wellesley College, then earned a Ph.D. in Fine Arts from Harvard University. When art history jobs proved elusive, she obtained an M.B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley. She worked as an art historian, a municipal financial advisor for U.S. cities and states, a non-profit fundraiser for institutions and two statewide political campaigns, and a professional genealogist. She included elements of all of these in her mysteries.

The Glassblowing Mystery series, written under the pen name Sarah Atwell, debuted in March 2008 with “Through a Glass, Deadly.” In the series, the protagonist, glassblower Em Dowell, manages her own glass shop and studio in Tucson, Arizona, and tries to find time to solve the occasional murder.

“Through a Glass, Deadly” was nominated for a national mystery award, the Agatha Award for Best First Book.

Connolly’s Orchard Mystery series opened with “One Bad Apple,” published in August 2008. Meg Corey inherits a drafty colonial house in western Massachusetts without even realizing it comes with an apple orchard. But since she’s been downsized out of her banking job in Boston, and the real estate market is so bad that she can’t sell the house, she decides to stay on in the small New England town and try to manage the orchard–if she can save it from developers. Her plan is nearly derailed when she finds the body of her ex-boyfriend stuffed in her septic tank.

Connolly’s Museum Mysteries began in October 2010 with “Fundraising the Dead”. Nell Pratt, development director for the prestigious Pennsylvania Antiquarian Society, is worried that the institution’s reputation will be threatened by the death of one of its key employees–whose body Nell found in the stacks. The police declare the death an accident, but Nell isn’t so sure, particularly when she finds information pointing in a different direction. Most recently, the author published Let’s Play Dead, set at a children’s museum based on the Please Touch Museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. A worker on an exhibit about a local children’s author is hurt by an electric shock, and then another worker is killed by a shock. Nell was present at the first incident, and she becomes involved in the inquiry into the second man’s death. the latest is Fire Engine Dead, about a fire at a warehouse housing the collections of a fire fighting museum.

Connolly was a member of Mystery Writers of America, Romance Writers of America, and Sisters in Crime.

She was living in southeastern Massachusetts shortly before her death. She died on April 20, 2020, in Ireland.

(Info above from Wikipedia)

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