The Poteenmaker’s Murder – Derek Fee

The fifth book in the Galway Murders series is another gripping thriller.

Three members of the same family are found murdered in a cottage in a remote area of South Connemara. When Detective Sergeant Fiona Madden and her partner detective Garda Sean Tracy view the scene, they learn that there is another family member who is apparently missing. Madden’s superior, DI Horgan, draws the obvious conclusion that the missing son is the murderer.

That theory proves false when the young man is found murdered in similar fashion as his parents and brother. Madden and Tracy struggle to discover the motive for the murders. Their search leads them to a hidden still in the Connemara hills and the possibility that the motive involves drugs and a major organised crime gang in Galway city.

The real motive involves sins committed in the past and has resonances with Madden’s own life.