Review by Aladon -- The 11.05 Murders by Brian O'Hare

Aladon · Post by **Aladon** » 05 Mar 2018, 13:13

[Following is a volunteer review of "The 11.05 Murders" by Brian O'Hare.]

3 out of 4 stars

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The 11:05 Murders by Brian O’Hare is the second book in the Sheehan Mysteries series. The book follows the Ireland Strandtown Serious Crimes department led by Chief Inspector Sheehan. New to the unit is Sergeant Denise Stewart, who was promoted to Serious Crimes after uncovering corruption in her former detachment. She is the star witness that results in the prosecution of her former inspector and Crown Prosecutor Robert Turner sees her as a rising star and takes a special interest in her.

Almost immediately Segeant Stewart lands a murder where the victim has his throat slit, and his genitals cut off and stuffed in his mouth. His watch is deliberately stopped at 11:05, the time of his death. While working the case Denise feels like she is being watched. When her colleague Tom Allen tries to help her figure out if someone is watching her, he is deliberately run off the road. Is this connected to the current case or is it retaliation for testifying against her former boss?

Denise begins getting disguised phone calls from someone who knows all the details of her current case. The informant gives her cryptic clues leading her to look into the suicide of a young College student who’s obituary had been stored on the victim’s computer. How is a 12 year old suicide linked to the current murder? However, several other people had motive to want to murder the victim. He had been calling in loans on clients resulting in the financial ruin of several individuals. He was also having an affair with an ex-loyalist paramilitary’s wife. And then a second person is murdered with the same m.o. adding further confusion about the relevance of the clues and motives.

I really enjoyed this book. There were a lot of twists and turns that kept the plot mysterious. It was never obvious how any of the evidence or the different story lines connected to the murders. Although I did figure it out about 2/3 of the way through the novel, it continued to be interesting how the author brought everything together to wrap it up in the end.

I would give this book a three out of four stars. I really enjoyed the plot and how the investigative work was presented. I felt that there was an appropriate number of plausible suspects so that who the killer was kept you guessing. I enjoyed the characters of the Serious Crimes unit. In particular they were portrayed as a team working the case, with all involved. I can see how all of these characters will continue to be fleshed out in subsequent novels. I didn’t give it a four out of four stars because I was able to figure out who the killer was. However, I would definitely read his other crime novels.

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The 11.05 Murders
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