New York Times bestselling author Sheila Connolly gives you a short story that will whet your appetite and last just as long as your tea stays warm.
In this quick taste of Sheilaâs mysteries, a neighborhood that takes care of their own sometimes has to take care of business . . .
âDintyâs Bar has occupied the same corner in Cambridge since before I was born. Not the Cambridge with the glitzy shops and exotic restaurants catering to parents dropping their little darlings off at the Big H, or the Cambridge filled with techy wonks. Dintyâs keeps a toehold in the back end of Cambridge, between Central Square and the river. Its patrons come from the neighborhood and theyâre pretty consistent: blue-collar, mostly construction workers, a scattering of cops and firefighters, all Irish in some way or another. Somehow this little area called Cambridgeport has escaped the gentrification that has crept through the city, and thatâs the way the people here like it.
Iâm the one who doesnât belong. I was one of those pampered students, and when I graduated I didnât know what I wanted to do, or at least I knew what I didnât want to do. I wanted some time with no grades, no letters of recommendation, no internships and interviews to make a professor or parent proud. Nope, I just wanted to stick around for a while and breathe. My bewildered parents didnât put up much of an argument, and as a graduation present they gave their baby boy enough cash to put a deposit on a top-floor apartment in a rundown triple-decker, with enough left over to buy a bed and a kitchen table with a couple of chairs.
I heard about the opening behind the bar at Dintyâs through a friend of a friend, and Iâd wandered in with no expectations and gotten the job. Just for the summer, I thought. Three summers later Iâm still here. After one of those increasingly rare calls from my folks, I try to convince myself that Iâm collecting information for a novel that Iâll probably never write. Mostly Iâm drifting and watching. It suits me, at least for now.â
So begins the latest short story from New York Times bestselling mystery author Sheila Connolly. Loosely based on an old Irish ballad, The Rising of the Moon tells the tale of a young bartender at an Irish pub in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and how, together with the community, he takes a stand against crime.
In addition to the story, readers will get a sneak peek into the first book in Sheilaâs new County Cork Mystery Series, Buried in a Bog.