Murder in an Irish Churchyard (Irish Village Mystery Book # 3) by Carlene O'Connor

Bestselling author Carlene O’Connor’s third novel in the acclaimed Irish Village Mystery series is now available in trade paperback! The village of Kilbane in County Cork, Ireland, has a new garda—and her first case is a grave matter indeed.

It's official! Siobhán is now Garda O’Sullivan, and her five siblings couldn’t be prouder. While brother James runs Naomi’s Bistro, Siobhán is doing her part to keep the village safe. Of course, Kilbane is pretty quiet compared to a place like Dublin, where Macdara Flannery has gone to be a detective sergeant. Good for him, but she still misses him.

Then one night the local priest summons Siobhán to the church cemetery. There’s a dead man in the graveyard—aboveground. He’s a stranger, but the priest has heard talk of an American tourist in town, searching for his Irish ancestor. A detective sergeant is dispatched from Dublin to assist with the case, and as fate would have it, it’s Macdara. After his parting, things are awkward between them, but they have to work together. They learn the victim was from Dublin—Dublin, Ohio, that is. And when his extended family arrives from the States, the plot thickens. Siobhán begins to dig for a motive among the gnarled roots of the family tree. But as long-buried secrets are unearthed, she and Macdara will need to stay two steps ahead of the killer or end up with more than one foot in the grave.  (Summary via Goodreads)

Anytime that I can spend time at Naomi's Bistro with the O'Sullivan Six in Kilbane, Ireland, I am going to do it !!  But with this third book, Murder in an Irish Churchyard, things are really different !!!

Murder in an Irish Churchyard, is the third book in the Irish Village Mystery series by Carlene O'Connor and main character Siobhan is on her first official murder case as a new guard at the Kilbane Gardai Station.  Unfortunately, things don't start off well when Father Kearney summons her at the bistro in the middle of the night when he finds a dead body above ground in the cemetery.  And things don't get any better when Detective Sergeant Macdara Flannery returns to oversee the investigation.  They were a couple until Siobhan decided to go to school to be a guard without talking to him first.  Even though he knew how much she enjoyed solving the cases in an unofficial capacity.

It doesn't take long for Siobhan to realize things are very different when you have to follow rules and not go by what you assume.  She has a hard time just following the evidence .... and the group that they are concentrating on are an American group, some family, who are there to do a documentary of their family who they believe lived in Ireland many years ago.  But when Frank, the one who really wanted to find out his family's history, is found dead in the cemetery, all the family and rest of the group want to do is return to the States.

Siobhan is working against the clock to find the killer and Macdara isn't helping.  The tension between them is there but he has forbidden them from discussing anything personal, so she has to work through that as well.

Readers cannot help but want to hang out at Naomi's Bistro or walk around town, even with a killer out there.  You will love Siobhan and her siblings, Macdara and their relationship or lack thereof, the town, the food ... even the murder case draws you in. You won't want to stop reading until you get to the end to make sure Siobhan can again solve the case.