False Mermaid

Cormac Maguire stands in an abandoned fisherman's cottage near Port na Rón, Ireland, and thinks about Mary Heaney, whose disappearance from this house more than a hundred years ago was explained away by claims that she was a selkie who had returned to the sea. As Cormac pulls a lone decaying woman's shoe from under an iron bedframe, he says to Roz, the woman who first told him of the mystery surrounding Mary Heaney's sudden disappearance, “Isn't it strange, though? Who leaves home wearing only one shoe?”

Across the ocean in St. Paul, Minnesota, the woman Cormac loves, forensic patholigist Nora Gavin, is trying to solve a different mystery surrounding another woman—her sister, Tríona—who was murdered five years ago. Convinced show more that Tríona's husband, Peter Hallett, killed her sister but unable to prove it in the months following Tríona's death, Nora has returned from her research work in Ireland to make another attempt at uncovering enough evidence to convict Peter, who has also just returned to St. Paul with Nora's 11-year-old niece, Elizabeth, to marry his fiancé. Meanwhile, the corpse of a woman who disappeared five years ago has been found by the river, and the autopsy indicates the wounds are identical to Tríona's. Detective Frank Cordova, who has never stopped working Tríona's case and who is very attracted to Nora, now begins a new investigation that seeks to uncover the connections between the two victims.

With False Mermaid Erin Hart has crafted a haunting mystery flavored with Irish folklore and topped off with a tang of suspense. Stories that start as parallel puzzles come to intersect across distance and time as the mysteries of Mary and Tríona unfold. Although the gothic notes near the end come off a bit strong, the overall effect is that of a memorable tale well told.

False Mermaid is the third book in the Nora Gavin series following Haunted Ground and Lake of Sorrows. This title can easily be read as a stand-alone novel without having read the first two in the series.

The audio version of this work enhances the overall effect of the story as readers experience the poetic passages as spoken in Irish. Narrator Roslyn Landor's lovely lilt enhances an already intriguing narrative. show less

In False Mermaid, Erin Hart does many things very well, moving this novel beyond the boundaries of whodunits. First, through the realistic characters she has created, she portrays vividly the destruction caused in a family by violent crime. Although the crime, in the end, is solved, there is no real closure, and the survivors continue to suffer.
Secondly, she weaves Irish folklore through her story. This adds a magical dimension to the novel. The mystery of the origins of one of the selkie stories is solved, along with the contemporary murder, but Hart leaves us thinking about the importance of stories in our lives.

In this, the third instalment of the Nora Gavin/Cormac Maguire mystery series, Nora, a pathologist, has returned from Ireland to Minnesota with the firm intent to finally prove her brother-in-law Peter Hallett guilty of murdering her sister five years earlier. She is very concerned now that her niece is older that she could be in danger from her father as well. She renews her connection with Frank Cordova, the police investigator who was one of the few who believed her, not realizing he believes she is reconnecting on a personal level as well. Nora is shocked to learn that her ex-boyfriend's sister Miranda is about to marry Peter and go to Ireland for their honeymoon. She is afraid that he will kill her the same as he did Triona.

Erin show more Hart has a wonderful sense of the mystical history of Ireland and how to weave the songs and lore of the islands into her stories whether in Ireland or America. In this book the folklore is mostly tied to the traditional Celtic Selkie stories, and one in particular. The Selkie traditionally is a seal that can change into a human by taking off her sealskin, but if her sealskin is taken, she is trapped in her human form. This is the basis of the legend in this book. The author's descriptions are beautiful, lyrical, and mystical, or they are vivid, harsh, and irrefutable, according to time and place. In other words, her writing is truly atmospheric. Nora and Frank find more evidence pointing to Peter, but there is always something cross-contaminating evidence just enough to blur the facts. Two witnesses are discovered, but the only people they have seen are women. Why would that be? Who is coming to the scene of the crime and what is the connection with another body found three weeks before Triona with the same cause of death and the same distinctive clues? Where do the witnesses fit into the scenario?

As always, Erin builds on the history, mystery and many connections, linking them all together and binding them tight. The tension mounts as Nora and her niece Elizabeth become targeted when Nora returns to Ireland. She has returned to rescue her after learning that not only did Peter and Miranda insist on taking Elizabeth with them on their honeymoon instead of leaving her with Nora's parents as planned, but a phone call from her neighbor in Dublin has alerted her that Elizabeth ran away from the airport when the plane landed in Ireland and they will keep her safe until Nora gets there.

There is an on-going thread about seals throughout the story that takes us from Pacific Ocean to Ireland, tying in the tale of the Selkie. It is as though the seal that Elizabeth knew on the Pacific Coast beach is the same one that appears on the coast of Ireland. There are many highlights in this book, particularly a Fiddle Festival. Trying to solve Triona's murder has opened much more than anyone would have anticipated, the suspense grows to the final outcome. Though this book does not involve archaeology or the bog people, it does involve the forensics of the crime scene, in particular the soil and flora samples. I not only recommend this book, I recommend the entire series for its flavor, mystery, suspense and surprise. show less

Where has Erin Hart been? It's been entirely too long since our last Nora Gavin/Cormac Maguire outing!

In False Mermaid, Nora, a pathologist, is drawn back to her sister's murder five years prior when she learns that her erstwhile brother-in-law is going to be married again, and she fears for the bride-to-be as well as for her young niece. In her sister, Triona's, death, all the evidence, circumstantial and gut-feeling, pointed to him, but nothing could ever be proven. Nora has never lost her belief in his guilt, though, so she leaves Ireland-- and her lover, Cormac Maguire-- to return to St. Paul and detective Frank Cordova in an attempt to to shed some light on the cold case. In the process, she learns that Triona's death may be linked show more to another unsolved homicide, and she discovers more unsettling facts about her brother-in-law. Without giving away too many plot details, all of this culminates in a desparate flight back to Ireland, where everyone will be forced to make their last stand.

Interwoven with Nora's story is Cormac's own tale: his father, from whom he has long since been estranged, has recently suffered a stroke, and Cormac suddenly finds himself at his bedside in remote Donegal. A fellow researcher, Roz, is there exploring selkie myths, myths of women who are at once seal and human. This all ties into a case of a woman who disappeared in the late 1800s in the same area, a woman who Roz suspects was murdered. Hart employs one of her greatest gifts as a writer here, bringing in Irish culture and folklore to enrich her mystery with an air of the almost-supernatural.

The novel is fast-paced, and the short chapters will keep you turning pages. There is an abundance of characters; sometimes it's difficult to keep everyone straight in your head. And it's pretty clear all along who's the good guy and who's the bad guy. Still, you can't guess how the conclusion will play out. And Hart does a lovely job with Irish folklore. There's a great deal of forensic detail, which should satisfy CSI-minded readers. The subtle romance between Nora and Cormac is never syurpy sweet or cloying; it's tender and underplayed. There's something for "head" and something for "heart," in other words. Add in the suspense, and most readers should find a solid suspense novel to keep them occupied for a day or two. show less

Nora Gavin has spent the past three years in Ireland, using her skills as a pathologist to find out what happened to several people whose bodies were found buried in peat bogs. Her desire to solve these mysteries stemmed from her own past: five years ago, her sister Tríona was murdered, and her killer was never brought to justice. Nora has always believed that Tríona’s husband Peter committed the crime, but there was no evidence to incriminate him. Now, however, Nora decides to return to America and make one last effort to find out what really happened to her sister. While she unearths new evidence that just might bring Tríona’s killer to justice, her sometime lover Cormac struggles to define his relationship with his father, who show more has recently come back into Cormac’s life after a long absence.

This is the third book in Hart’s series featuring Nora and Cormac, and it definitely does not stand alone. The unsolved mystery of Tríona’s death is a big factor in the first two books, and this third installment finally explores Nora’s inner conflict in some depth. Although I was eager to learn how the mystery would finally be resolved, much of the investigation itself fell flat. I couldn’t help but question the realism of the whole thing: was it really likely that a bunch of new evidence would turn up so long after the crime? Would the police even be interested in reopening the case at this point? I also didn’t really like the secondary story about Mary Heaney, a woman of Irish legend who was supposedly a selkie. Though I could see how it paralleled the events with Tríona, I didn’t really think it was necessary. That said, Erin Hart has the ability to suck me in with her writing, especially her descriptions of the Irish seaside. I would definitely read more books in this series, but False Mermaid is not a particularly strong installment, in my opinion. show less

Adult mystery/suspense. I haven't read the other two books from this series, but this book on its own was a satisfying suspense novel (ok, the ending felt a tiny bit forced, but still perfectly acceptable) with the added bonus of the Irish countryside setting. After finishing the Stieg Larsson series I am happy to have stumbled on this author.

For some reason I thought this was a stand-alone; when I got it home, I realized it was third in a series and also that it was set largely in St. Paul. Since I lived in Minneapolis for many years and worked in St. Paul for some of them, the locales were familiar, which added to my enjoyment. I loved the way Hart melded an all-too-real contemporary murder story with the legend of the seal-woman. If you enjoy this book, I'd recommend you watch John Sayles's wonderful film THE SECRET OF ROAN INISH. You might also like to listen to Jean Redpath's "Song of the Seals" and at least
one version of "The Great Silkie of Sule Skerry" -- Joan Baez, Maddy Prior, June Tabor and Judy Collins have all recorded it and you can download any of them for 99 show more cents or so on Amazon or iTunes. I now definitely plan to read the previous two books in the series and look forward to more. show less