Murder at an Irish Session (Irish Village Mystery Book # 12) by Carlene O'Connor

As pregnant Siobhán O’Sullivan awaits bringing her new life into the world, she’s bringing new life to her village of Kilbane in County Cork, Ireland, with a music and matchmaking festival. But one matchmaker is about to find out that Cupid’s arrow can be fatal in the latest Irish Village Mystery from USA Today bestselling author Carlene O’Connor.

Siobhán loves to see the joy playing trad music brings to her brother Ciaran, but his concern that he’ll never find a mate pulls at her heartstrings. So, she proposes that Kilbane host a music and matchmaking festival to draw single trad musicians. While renowned matchmaker Liam Noone plays Cupid with his Lucky Book, music—and hopefully love—will fill the pubs and the autumn air.

Turning over his precious Lucky Book to Siobhán for safekeeping, Liam takes the stage to introduce matched musician couples who will kick off the festival in the
town square. Suddenly all goes black. When the lights come back on, the matchmaker has met his maker, impaled through the heart with an arrow made from the sharpened bow of a bass.

Was it the fiddle player, the flute player, the drummer, the piper, the squeeze box player, or the bass player who struck a sour note? Garda Siobhán and her husband Macdara must pick up the tempo to make whoever committed this crime of passion face the music…  (Summary via Goodreads)

Even though Siobhan has her hands full, with her new promotion to Detective Sergeant as well as being pregnant with twins, she will always look after her siblings and their happiness.  And in Murder at an Irish Session, the twelfth book in Carlene O'Connor's Irish Village Mystery series, the focus is on her younger brother Ciaran.

Seeing as Ciaran is a fiddler player and interested in music, when Siobhan learns of a matchmaker who combines music and love, she works with him and his assistants to host a festival in Kilbane.  The host, Liam, brings his two assistants as well as a group of couples that he successfully matched a year ago to town.

Unfortunately, at the beginning of the festival there is a lighting problem and when it is fixed and the lights come back on, Liam is dead, shot in the heart by bow and arrow.  Readers may think that this would be an easy case to solve, but with this being O'Connor's twelfth book, she knows what she is doing .... and she will have you guessing until the very end.

I am a huge fan of mysteries and cozy mysteries; however, I never try to solve the case.  Although there have been a few times where I was pretty sure I knew who the guilty party was.  I like to relax and read the story and just get lost in it all.  O'Connor knows how to write the story keeping readers on the edge of their seats.  And I hope you are a fan of this series as well and have come to love Siobhan, her family and Kilbane as much as I have.  If not, you have plenty of time to catch up.