In Dublin's Fair City: A Molly Murphy Mystery

Set in 1903, Bowen's sixth brisk Molly Murphy historical (after 2006's Oh Danny Boy ) takes the Irish immigrant to New York City back to the Emerald Isle for an assignment to find a theater impresario's long-lost sister, left behind when his family fled the potato famine 50 years earlier. Even though Molly had left Ireland under a cloud of suspicion herself, she bids a temporary farewell to her beau, New York police captain Daniel Sullivan. The voyage begins auspiciously when a famous actress offers Molly her first class stateroom, but Molly's discovery of a corpse in her sumptuous bed is only the beginning of a complicated, dangerous journey. In Dublin, she becomes embroiled in the Irish struggle for freedom and finds herself a target for murder. With a riveting plot capped off by a dramatic conclusion, Bowen captures the passion and struggles of the Irish people at the turn of the 20th century. (Mar.)