Irish eyes : a Nuala Anne McGrail novel /

Would you ever want to read a bit of an Irish mystery from the Chicago Catholic priest who's almost as prolific (if not quite as successful) as New England's Stephen King? If you would, Andy Greeley has concocted another multi-puzzle adventure for your delectation, featuring Irish singer Nuala Anne McGrail; her author husband, Dermot Michael Coyne; their Irish wolfhound Fiona; and the newest member of the household, baby Nelliecoyne, who seems to be as fey as her mother. It's the infant who first senses the tragedy--the 1898 sinking of a full passenger ship on Lake Michigan--that her parents pursue as the central mystery of Irish Eyes. But there are other issues, too: an obnoxious radio host making a career of attacking Nuala; threats and deadly violence in which the Coynes are implicated; emotional problems in Dermot's extended family; and even a rocky romantic road for the DePaul graduate student who cares for Nelliecoyne when her parents are out chasing down clues. An entertaining entry in Greeley's McGrail series. --Mary Carroll

Nuala Anne McGrail and husband, Dermot Michael Coyne, are bewitched by their new baby daughter, red-haired, green-eyed Nellie Coyne, who proves to be as fey as her mother in this latest puzzle from prolific priest Greeley (Irish Gold, Irish Lace, etc.). While at the Lake Michigan summer home of Dermot's parents, mother has a vision of the ramming and sinking of a ship on a stormy night 100 years ago while daughter cries in apparent psychic sympathy. This sets a course that leads the husband-wife team to explore the history of the Irish in Chicago, the conditions for immigrants at that time and the impact of past deeds on the present. Old country politics come into play, as do the descendants of those proud, resilient newcomers. Meanwhile, local radio personality Nick Farmer, who's envious of Dermot's writing success, is determined to destroy Nuala's blossoming folksinging career and even threatens legal proceedings that could take away her baby. Greeley's very loving couple are an amalgam of the traditional and the high tech, with cell phones at the ready and always only a beep away from the baby-sitter. Dermot makes an endearing narrator, in turn adoring and bemused, although at times Greeley goes a bit overboard on the brogue. The author enriches the plot with Windy City lore and even manages to work the Balkan Mafia into the act. You don't have to be Irish to enjoy this one. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

The brogue is thick, the plot is thin in this undernourishing Irish stew. Quintessential colleen Nuala Anne McGrail in her fourth appearance (Irish Whiskey, 1997, etc.) continues to be catnip to her husband, the bestselling author Dermot Coyne. `` `Tis good to have a wife, particularly one like mine,'' gushes Dermot, and in fact they romp together incessantly. Well, perhaps not as incessantly as they used to now that there's also Nelliecoyne, their world-class seven-month-old, that ``bewitching little girl'' who, it turns out, is as mysterious as her mother. Like Nuala, she's ``a dark one'' and sees the past. A doomed schooner, for instance, that went down off the shore of Lake Michigan a hundred years ago, all souls lost, is sharply visible to Nuala, her own peculiar form of hindsight. So there they are, the young Coynes, off by themselves, looking to enjoy a period of ``sexual abandonment'' before the advent of winter, and suddenly a mysterious five-master sticks its prow in where it doesn't belong. That's Dermot's view anyhow, but (as ever) it's Nuala's view that matters. And if there's a mystery, the dark ones among us are obligated to unshroud it. The schooner isn't the only puzzler on Nuala's plate. A more conventional conundrum involves the mean-spirited schlock journalist Nick Farmer, who hated the Coynes until the day he was snuffed out by Chicago's mafia'Chicago's Balkan mafia, that is. The why behind this must be tracked down too. Both mysteries get solved, of course, though, oh, neither amounts to much. The Coynes adore themselves, their baby, their dog, and being Irish, but where's the meat on the bones, Father?