Suggested Reading for St. Patrick's Day

And it's a feminist fiction bonus...
Check out Erin Hart's series of books about pathologist Nora Gavin. If you laready know the series, you're in luck, the latest in the series, The Book of Killowen, was just published this month. Archaeologist Cormac Maguire is back too!  Author Hart is incredibly accessible. She's on FB (and not just a fan page) and you can find out more about her books at her site. Nora is an American but the books all take place in Ireland.
For another kind of Irish mystery, dip into Tana French's books featuring the Dublin Murder Squad. The paperback version of her latest, Broken Harbor, will be released next month. 

St. Patrick's Day Recommended Reading

It's St. Patrick's Day and what better way to spend it than catching up with some Irish mysteries written by women?
Start with Erin Hart's Haunted Ground and its sequels, Lake of Sorrows and False Mermaid. The protagonist of all three books is American pathologist Nora Gavin, who lives in Ireland. Her books blend forensic science, Irish myth and mystery in a wonderful way.
Learn more about Erin at her website
You can follow her on Twitter @Erin_Hart
For a very different reading experience, check out If I Never See You Again, Niamh O'Connor's first novel (she was best known as a true crime writer before). Taken is the sequel. You can read about her here
Here's a link to an interview she did in support of her book Blood Ties, about the real stories behind some of Ireland's most notorious murders.
.

SinC25--the Fifth and Final (for now) Shout-out to Women Crime Writers

In Game of Thrones, John Snow asks Tyrion Lannister why he's always reading. "A mind needs books," he says, "like a sword needs a whetstone."
Writers need to read or their writing gets stale.
My parents refused to allow us to read comic books (we'd sneak them at friends' houses) but encouraged us to read anything else that struck our fancy. The result was that I turned into an omnivorous reader, devouring both good and bad books without judgment. 
When I discovered I could make a living as a "reader" for the movie industry, I felt like I'd been given my heavenly reward early. "I get paid to read books," I told my relatives, who kept asking me what my "real job" was.