Death of Riley: A Molly Murphy Mystery by Rhys Bowen

                Here’s something I don’t understand.  You find out the person you are dating has a fiancée.  Then, when you confront the person about this other woman, they stand there, unable to figure out why you’re upset.  Nor can they understand why you no longer want anything to do with them, no matter what their explanation about the situation may be.  You have a fiancée, we are over.  I really don’t think this is a hard concept to understand.  For Captain Daniel Sullivan, apparently it is.

                Now that Molly Murphy has been in America for a little while and gotten used to life here, she is working really hard on finding a steady job to support herself.  Everything she tries doesn’t quite work out, though.  Her personality and nature do not work well with being a servant.  Working with fish she is not at all enthusiastic about.  No, what Molly really wants to do is become a private investigator.  She wants to look for people whose relatives across the ocean are desperate to hear from their loved ones.             

                Molly’s boyfriend is not for this at all.  Captain Daniel Sullivan says being a private investigator is too dangerous of a career, especially for a woman.  (I will warn you, this mentality is in this book a lot.  It is very annoying, even when remembering the story is set in 1901.)  What Daniel wants is for Molly to become a companion for an older woman he knows.  Molly is not sure about this.  She has a tendency to speak her mind no matter the situation, which would probably not be good for a paid companion.  Yet, Molly wants to make Daniel happy, so she agrees to give the job a try.

                As expected, Molly does not keep her words to herself when dealing with the wealthy Miss Van Woekem.  The funny thing is, Miss Van Woekem actually likes Molly standing up to her.  She finds Molly’s sass appealing, not that she will every admit that while Molly is in her employ.

                Fortunately, Molly isn’t a companion for long.  Very quickly after she is hired, Molly discovers Daniel has a fiancée.  A fiancée who just happens to be the goddaughter of Miss Van Woekem.

                Since Molly only took the companion job to please Daniel, and she knows she cannot be in the same household as the fiancée, Arabella, Molly quits her job.  Now free to do as she likes, Molly sets out to become a private investigator.

                Molly starts this off by presenting herself to a private investigator she has seen around town.  Paddy Riley is someone she’s seen Daniel have dealings with, not that this connection matters to Paddy.  A woman is not someone he wants to work with, no matter who they have in common. 

                Of course, Molly refuses to take Paddy’s no as an answer.  Trying to prove herself worthy of working with him, Molly creates schemes until Paddy eventually wears down and lets Molly work in the office.  It is there that Molly finds Paddy dying one day.  His murderer is still there when she arrives, as he is searching the office looking for something.  Unfortunately, the murderer does get away.  To make matters worse, the police seem to have little interest in finding him.  The responsibility of finding out who killed Paddy is left to Molly.  It is a task she is all too willing to take on.

                I’ll be honest, I considered stopping reading this book part-way through.  That’s because the awful cousin of Seamus, the father of the two children Molly helped bring to America, moves in with them after there is an accident at Seamus’s work.  His cousin Nuala helps to take care of him, and she is awful.  I couldn’t stand her in the first book, and I certainly wasn’t going to tolerate this woman in the second.

                Thankfully, Molly meets some new friends and is able to move in with them, leaving Nuala behind.  Sid and Gus are two really fun women with a lot of interesting friends.  I hope they continue to be in the books that follow because I would love to learn more about them.  As for Daniel, I definitely cannot say I feel the same way.