Previously published as The Farmyard Mystery

The wild west of Ireland. A lonely farmhouse. A father and son slaughtered in the dead of night.

Farmer Pat Nevin and his university-student son, Conor, drive through the quiet rural landscape of County Mayo, heading back to their farmhouse in Mucklagh. It’s 3.30 a.m. As they step out of their Mitsubishi jeep, they are stabbed to death.

Pat’s distraught wife, Eileen, and their younger son, Shane, rush out of the house to find their bodies lying on the ground — and call the police.

The Nevins were good farming folk. So what were they doing on the backroads at three in the morning?

Detective Inspector Martin O’Shea and Detective Sergeant Deirdre Maguire of the Westport Gardaí are called to investigate. The newly formed team, created after a reorganisation of the western region, must prove itself fast. Maguire, an intelligent and determined officer from Tipperary, has sharp intuition about people; O’Shea, methodical and slightly world-weary, anchors the case with experience.