DEATH ON A COLD, WILD RIVER

Before he married Noreen, Peter McGarr of Dublin's Serious Crimes Unit courted, then jilted, fly-fisherwoman Nellie Millar. Now, with time on his hands waiting out his suspension (The Death of Love, 1992), McGarr heads for Ardara to pay his respects when news of Nellie's drowning in the River Owena reaches him. Was her death planned? Her young lover, a Yank with an unacknowledged wife and kids tucked away in a shack, claims to have been her partner in her fly-fishing school and catalogue-sales business; a wealthy Scottish divorcÇe, with an eye to copying Nellie's success—and stealing her lover—was taking private lessons from her; and a local net-fisherman had a deep grievance against Nellie. With an assist from detectives Bresnahan and Ward, plus Celtic mythology lessons from Noreen, McGarr sorts through Nellie's recent past—and helps her Da find peace at last. Less political than most McGarrs, but a sterling example of a puzzle mystery—complete with misdirection, wily clues, and a timetable skewed by a trilby. Lyrical salmon-casting vignettes and the best Gill prose since his Death of a Joyce Scholar.