The Drowning Sea

Taylor, Sarah Stewart. The Drowning Sea (Maggie D’arcy Mysteries #3). June 2022. 352p. Minotaur.
I tiptoe warily toward books set in my home country, Ireland, fearing they’ll be all priests and mist, but Taylor mines a thoroughly modern Ireland for her thoughtful tale. The setting is West Cork, long a bohemian area that attracts foreigners who like a slower way of life. Taylor shows it being overtaken by the ultra-rich while the local bad boy made good, who owns everything from the gastropub to the manor house, is building a hotel that has locals staging protests and sabotaging construction. The beauty of the area is already working against it, then, when a body washes up on the beach. He’s a member of the area’s Polish community, one of the young people who ease the lives of the rich but struggle themselves, and his death begins to scrape away the veneer of niceness on the town’s past and present. Women steer this story, starting with the series’ star, Maggie D’arcy, a Long Island police officer who’s visiting Ireland but may stay with her new boyfriend and their respective children. There is also a young Polish officer who reluctantly lets Maggie into some aspects of the investigation and an artist whose nebulous memories of a possible past crime seem related to the present-day violence. Tana French fans will love this intricate, relationship-fueled crime story and its strong women characters.