THE APOTHECARY ROSE

Medieval detective Owen Archer must investigate a fatal medicine administered to the English Lord Chancellor by the Master Apothecary and resist loving a prime suspect, the apothecary's wife. A first novel.

The Emerald Isle and the multihued island of Manhattan provide the settings for this uneven debut featuring Brian MacMorrough Donodio, a retired history professor and expert horticulturist. Acting on a note he receives at the Irish Historical Society requesting a meeting, Donodio finds the body of Maureen Sullivan stabbed through the heart; the victim was an Irish cop visiting New York to find her missing sister. Against the wishes of his daughter Dierdre, an INS agent, Donodio probes the death and turns up plenty of immigration problems in the form of secretive Irish usually living in rented apartments under assumed names. The author slides abruptly from green cards to more sinister matters and the body count advances by two, prompting Donodio to take off for Dublin. As love blooms between Donodio's daughter and a cop on the case, abrupt narrative leaps between romantic whimsy and hard-boiled action scenes jar the plot's continuity. Among a tritely characterized cast, Donodio stands out as impossibly pleasant and noble.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Trouble's afoot at N.Y.C.'s Irish Cultural Center, where retired history professor Brian Donodio--on his first day teaching a survey course--meets a purple-haired punk named Melisande and gets a mysterious please-can-we-meet note from visiting Irish cop Maureen Sullivan. Brian soon discovers Maureen's dead body, is interrogated by Detective ``Con'' Connolly of the NYPD, then warned not to snoop by his own daughter, Deirdre, a field agent with the INS. Brian, of course, pays no attention to her, but while Con and Deirdre are initiating a sweet romance, he stumbles on the Cultural Center director snorting coke and learns that Maureen's sister Monica, who had preceded her to the States, is missing--and Maureen had been searching for her. More bodies pile up before Brian heads for Ireland to see whether the root of the troubles lies with the IRA, drug-runners, or a forged green-card operation. Con and Deirdre will fly to Donegal just in time to rescue Brian from an infamous gang of criminals. Undemanding first-mystery fare from children's author Callahan, whose culprits are, alas, less believable--and engaging- -than the Donodios and Con. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

When Irish cop Maureen Sullivan is murdered in New York, where she had gone to search for her lost sister, the case becomes the personal crusade of Brian Donodio, who found the body. Donodio, the father of Maureen's friend Deirdre, a U.S. immigration agent also involved in the case, follows a trail that takes him from New York to Dublin to rural Ireland, where he uncovers a computer-based immigration-fraud scheme. This is a very light, very readable mystery. Brian is a curmudgeonly type, given to temper and a sharp tongue; his wit will wither an adversary and leave readers chuckling. It's clear that a series is planned with Brian as the amateur-sleuth hero. While his bumbling escapades work fine here, it's hard to know if they will strain credibility over time. How many murders can the father of an immigration officer stumble into? For now, this one's lots of fun. Wes Lukowsky