"Blue Murder" by Joan O'Neill

"Blue Murder" by Joan O'Neill  (2004, 11 pages)

Year III- March 1 to March 31

Joan O'Neill

County Wicklow

"Blue Murder" by Joan O'Neill is another short story from Irish Girls Are Back In Town.  The stories in this anthology are almost all by Irish writers who have enjoyed significant commercial success with best sellers in Ireland and internationally.   The publisher describes the stories in the collection as "Chick Lit", if you look at the webpage of the writers in the collection most of them specialize in romance novels.  The stories in this collection are straightforward easy to read and many do make use of a "twist ending".  

"Blue Murder" is an interesting story.   It uses the standard plot of a woman who has been out of town for five years following the death of her father returning to her home in Ireland.  She had several good friends she was close too and they want to have a reunion with her.  She wants to avoid it because when her father died there was a lot of gossip that she murdered him and she does not want to go through a phony social gathering with her ex-friends where everyone tries to avoid mentioning her father and pretend everything is just as it once was.  In the meeting we learn about the updates of the lives of her friends, we learn how the woman feels about being suspected of having murdered her father.

One of the husbands of the women in a public prosecutor.   As the woman is leaving, he turns in the drive way and greets her.  Then he tells her he knows she murdered her father and she might have gotten away with it five years ago but he is going to reopen the case and prove she is guilty.    The next day she gets the tragic news that he died in a car wreck when his brakes failed and to make it all the more sinister it looks like his breaks had been cut.  

The ending is interesting.   This was a fast reading story and I am glad I have experienced it.

Author Data

Joan O'Neill is a well-established, best-selling author of adult fiction both in Ireland and the UK. Originally published over in Ireland, the Daisy Chain trilogy has been in print since 1990 and the reissues have proved to have enduring appeal to readers of 10 and above. Joan has three grown up daughters and lives with her husband in idyllic County Wicklow in Ireland. In between writing she is a keen water-colourist and travels frequently to Italy to gain inspiration and paint.   She has published 10 novels.

Mel u