Death at Christy Burke's: A Mystery

by Anne Emery

Overview

"Halifax lawyer Anne Emery’s terrific series featuring lawyer Monty Collins and priest Brennan Burke gets better with every book." — Globe and Mail
There’s a killer on the premises of Christy Burke’s pub in Dublin, according to graffiti spray-painted on the wall. Father Brennan Burke, Christy’s grandson, is asked to investigate the vandalism. Brennan has been tending the bar a bit himself and is not all that keen on probing into the lives of his clientele. But he has little choice once a body is found and the property investigation becomes a murder inquiry.
The pub’s current owner, issuing orders from his cell in Mountjoy Prison, wants the problem solved, and for reasons of his own does not want the police anywhere near the building. Brennan enlists the help of his pal Monty Collins and fellow priest Michael O’Flaherty, and the three of them uncover dark secrets in the lives of the pub regulars, secrets some might kill for.
For Brennan, the murder investigation is overshadowed by even more ominous events in Belfast, events that may be coming home to roost in Christy Burke’s. Sinister figures are spotted in and around the pub, people are being followed in the street, and Brennan comes to possess explosive information that he cannot reveal to security forces or to anyone else. Brennan is compelled to take a hard look at Irish history and his family’s place in it, and Michael’s sunny optimism about his ancestral home is about to be sorely tested, when an act of violence in Northern Ireland sends out shock waves that reverberate all the way to Dublin.
About the Collins-Burke Mysteries
This multi-award-winning series is centred around two main characters who have been described as endearingly flawed: Monty Collins, a criminal defence lawyer who has seen and heard it all, and Father Brennan Burke, a worldly, hard-drinking Irish-born priest. The priest and the lawyer solve mysteries together, but sometimes find themselves at cross-purposes, with secrets they cannot share: secrets of the confessional, and matters covered by solicitor-client confidentiality. The books are notable for their wit and humour, and their depiction of the darker side of human nature — characteristics that are sometimes combined in the same person, be it a lawyer, a witness on the stand, or an Irish ballad singer who doubles as a guerrilla fighter in the Troubles in war-torn Belfast. In addition to their memorable characters, the books have been credited with a strong sense of place and culture, meticulous research, crisp and authentic dialogue, and intriguing plots. The novels are set in Nova Scotia, Ireland, England, Italy, New York, and Germany. The series begins with Sign of the Cross (2006) and continues to the most recent installment, Postmark Berlin (2020).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781550229882
Publisher:	ECW Press
Publication date:	10/01/2011
Series:	A Collins-Burke Mystery Series , #6
Pages:	370
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.18(d)

About the Author

Anne Emery is a graduate of Dalhousie Law School who has worked as a lawyer, a legal affairs reporter, and a researcher. She is the author of Barrington Street Blues, Cecilian Vespers, Children in the Morning, Obit, and Sign of the Cross, winner of the 2006 Arthur Ellis Award for Best First Novel. She lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Read an Excerpt

Death at Christy Burke's

A Mystery

---

By Anne Emery

ECW PRESS

Copyright © 2011 Anne Emery
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-77090-092-9

---

CHAPTER 1

July 11, 1992

Michael

Nobody loved Ireland like Michael O'Flaherty. Well, no, that wasn't quite the truth. How could he presume to make such a claim over the bodies of those who had been hanged or shot by firing squad in the struggle for Irish independence? Or those who had lived in the country all their lives, in good times and in bad, staving off the temptation to emigrate from their native soil? Nobody loved Ireland more than Michael did. He was on fairly safe ground there. He was a student of history, and his story led him straight back to Ireland. A four-cornered Irishman, he had four grandparents who emigrated from the old country to that most Irish of Canadian cities, Saint John, New Brunswick. His mother was fourteen when her parents brought her over on the boat in 1915, and Michael had inherited her soft lilting speech.

He was in the old country yet again. How many times had he been here? He had lost count. Monsignor Michael O'Flaherty cut quite a figure in the tourist industry. The Catholic tourist industry, to be more precise. Every year he shepherded a flock of Canadian pilgrims around the holy sites of Ireland: Knock, Croagh Patrick, Glendalough. And he showed them something of secular Ireland as well — all too secular it was now, in his view, but never mind. He conducted tours of Dublin, Cork, Galway; it varied from year to year. All this in addition to his duties as pastor of St. Bernadette's Church in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He had moved to Halifax as a young priest, after spending several years in the parishes of Saint John. Why not pack his few belongings in a suitcase and cross the ocean once and for all, making Ireland his home? Well, the truth was, he was attached to Nova Scotia, to his church, and to the people there. He had made friends, especially in the last couple of years. And two of those friends were in Dublin right now. He was on his way to meet them, having seen his latest group of tourists off at the airport for their journey home to Canada.

He looked at his watch. It was half-noon. Brennan Burke had given him elaborate directions but there was no need. Michael knew the map of Dublin as well as he knew the Roman Missal, and he was only five minutes away from his destination at the corner of Mountjoy Street and St. Mary's Place. His destination was Christy Burke's pub.

Michael, decked out as always in his black clerical suit and Roman collar, kept up a brisk pace along Dominick Street Upper until he reached Mountjoy and turned right. A short walk up the street and there it was. This was an inner-city area of Dublin and it had fallen on hard times. But the pub had a fresh coat of cream-coloured paint. There was a narrow horizontal band of black around the building above the door and windows. Set off against the black was the name "Christy Burke" in gold letters. Lovely! He pushed the door open and stepped inside. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the smoke and the darkness after the bright July sunshine.

"Michael!"

"Brennan, my lad! All settled in, I see. Good day to you, Monty!"

Michael joined his friends at their table, where a pint of Guinness sat waiting for him. Brennan Burke was a fellow priest, Michael's curate technically. But it was hard to think of Burke, with his doctorate in theology and his musical brilliance, as anybody's curate. He had lived here in Dublin as a child, then immigrated to New York before he joined Michael at St. Bernadette's in Halifax. It was a long story. Christy Burke was Brennan's grandfather, long deceased by now, of course. Brennan himself was fifty or a little over. Young enough to be Michael's son, if Michael had been tomcatting around in his seminary days, which he most certainly had not! In any case, they looked nothing alike. Brennan was tall with greying black hair and black eyes. Michael was short and slight, with white hair and eyes of blue. Monty Collins, though, could be mistaken for Michael's son. Same colour eyes and fair hair. A few years younger than Brennan and deceptively boyish in appearance, Monty was their lawyer and confidant.

Michael greatly enjoyed their company. So it was grand that they were able to arrange this time together in Dublin. Brennan had signed on to teach at the seminary in Maynooth for six weeks. Michael was on an extended vacation, with the blessings of his bishop. It was the first time he had been away for more than two weeks, ever. And why not? In any other job, he'd be retired by now! They had left the home parish in the capable hands of another priest they both knew. Monty, too, was on vacation. Told his office he was taking a month off. Made whatever arrangements he had to make for his law practice, and boarded the plane. So here they were.

Brennan

Brennan Burke was a man of firm opinions. He knew where he stood, and those who were acquainted with him were left in little doubt about who was standing and where. But that sense of certainty deserted him each and every time he came home to the land of his birth. He was glad to be in Ireland, to be sure, but he was afflicted with sorrow, anger, and frustration over the violence that was tearing apart the North of Ireland. Catholics and Protestants, Nationalists and Loyalists, Republicans and Unionists — however you labelled them — had been blasting one another to bits for the past two decades. This was the nation that had sent monks into continental Europe to evangelize and educate the barbarians after the fall of Rome, monks who had helped keep the light of European civilization glowing through the Dark Ages. St. Thomas Aquinas had been taught by an Irishman in thirteenth-century Naples, for the love of Christ. And look at us now.

Brennan's own family had been steeped in the events of Irish history, certainly in the first half of the century. History had stalked his father, Declan Burke, all the way to New York City. Declan had fled Ireland at the point of a gun when Brennan was ten years old; he remembered as if it were yesterday his loneliness and terror as the ship slipped out of Cobh Harbour in the dark of night and began the long, heaving voyage across the Atlantic. Brennan's father had not laid shoe leather on the soil of Ireland since that hasty departure in 1950. But that wasn't the end of it. History caught up with Declan as recently as a year ago in the form of a bullet in the chest, at a family wedding in New York. The wound was not fatal, but nearly so.

Well, his son was a frequent visitor to the old country even if Declan was not. And here he was again. The Burkes of Dublin were spoken of as a "well-known Republican family." Were they in the thick of things still?

But there was pleasure to be had today, so why not just bask in it for a while and banish dark thoughts to the outermost chambers of his mind? He picked up his glass of whiskey, inhaled the alcoholic fumes, and took a sip. Ah! Tingling on the lips, honey on the tongue. Cigarette? No, wait. As usual. Enjoy a pure hit of the Jameson first. The warmth spread through him as the whiskey went down. And there was more to come.

Michael

"When did you fellows arrive?"

"This morning," Brennan replied.

"And how long have you been planted in here?"

"Not long at all, Michael. We've barely got our throats wet."

Christy Burke's was a typical Dublin pub with a dark wood interior, old flagstone floor, long counter with its pumps and glimmering bottles of spirits, brass foot rail and stools, and tables along the walls, some of them separated by wooden partitions. Tacked to the wall beside the bar was a tattered copy of the 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic, one line of which had always resounded in Michael's mind: "We place the cause of the Irish Republic under the protection of the Most High God, Whose blessing we invoke upon our arms." The walls bore numerous old photographs, including one dated 1922, showing a group of men wearing trench coats or jackets and ties, tweed caps or fedoras — slouch hats, he guessed they were — all carrying rifles as they marched down Grafton Street on patrol. There was a faded sepia-toned picture of a man tending bar. Christy himself? A score of dedicated drinkers, most with cigarettes smouldering in ashtrays beside them, were scattered throughout the pub. To a man, they had turned slowly, pints in hand, when Michael came in.

Someone had left a newspaper draped over the arm of Michael's chair. The Irish Independent. Michael picked it up and turned the pages. Ah, there it was. The missing preacher. Michael had been following the story. An American evangelist who ran a television ministry based in South Carolina had vanished in the early hours of the eighth of July while on a visit to Belfast. He and his wife had been touring England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland with a group of fellow evangelicals. On his third day in Belfast, he left the Europa Hotel at six o'clock in the morning and had not been seen since. The photo showed a man in his early sixties, smiling around a big set of bright white teeth, grey or blond hair blow-dried and puffing out from a side part. The Reverend Merle Odom.

"Still no word. What a shame," Michael remarked. "Pray Mary he'll turn up unharmed. What do you think of my idea, Brennan?" He had mentioned the plan to Brennan over the phone.

"What idea is that?" Monty asked.

"I'm thinking we could gather a bunch of Catholic clergy and issue a statement calling for the man's release. Sort of an ecumenical show of support. The message would be: 'This hurts all of us. Let's put our differences aside and bring the man home.'"

"Do we even know he's been captured?" That was Monty, a man for the facts, but perhaps a little naïve if he thought Odom had just embarked on a long, solitary walk along Great Victoria Street in Belfast three days ago!

"No, we don't know that at all." The voice came from the bar. Michael looked over to see a handsome, white-haired man around his own age. He looked remarkably like the publican in the old photo on the wall, except for the fact that his eyes were obscured by dark glasses.

"Finn!" Brennan called to the man. "Come introduce yourself to my pastor."

The man left the bar and came over to the table. He held his hand out to Michael. "Finn Burke. I've heard nothing but good about you, Monsignor."

"Call me Michael. Or Mike if you prefer. So you're the new Christy Burke."

"Ah, I'll never be the man my father was. This place was a shambles when he bought it in 1919, and laboured night and day to get it restored. But when he started to get feeble near the end of his life, I came in to help and I've been here ever since. I'm still involved with the trucking business — Burke Transport — but behind this bar is where you'll find me most days."

"It's lovely."

"Where are you staying, Michael?"

"I'm in a bed and breakfast on Lower Gardiner Street. I've brought them so much business over the years, they've given me the room for free!"

"You've been lugging busloads of tourists all over the island, I understand, Michael. How long have you been at that now?"

"I've been at it such a long time, Finn, I'd have to puzzle out the answer for you. But I can tell you this: I've kissed the Blarney Stone so many times I feel I ought to do the right thing and marry it!"

"Well, nobody here has ever been intimate with the Blarney Stone, so you'll find no competition from these quarters."

"Don't I know it, Finn? It's only the tourists who want to see it, but they insist. So back I go every time. They always want to wear silly hats too, whether it's something that looks like a pint of stout on their heads, or a Viking helmet here in Dublin. What can you do?"

"Leo Killeen will show you a slice of Irish life you've never seen before."

"Oh, yes, I'm looking forward to it. When will we be seeing Leo?"

If there was anyone Michael was anxious to meet on this trip, it was Leo Killeen. Leo was a priest and friend of Brennan Burke's father. Michael had read Irish history; Leo had lived it.

"Well now, he's tied up today," Finn said.

"Is he in the city?"

"In the city, no. I believe he's in the North doing good works. But he'll be back in the parish before too long."

"What kind of good works is he performing in the North, Finn?" Brennan asked.

Finn turned his head in Michael's direction, then in Monty's, before returning his attention to Brennan. A slight nod from that quarter seemed to be the assurance he wanted that he could speak freely.

"You've heard about that, em, accident. In Dungannon."

"The bombing, you mean?"

"It was a bombing, Brennan, yes. But you know it was never meant — from what I hear — never meant to harm a human soul. It was only after —"

"The owner of the business, and his sister visiting from England, were blown to bits, Finn."

"It's a tragedy, to be sure. But they wouldn't have been scratched — they wouldn't even have been on the premises — if the Royal Ulster Constabulary hadn't decided, for reasons of their own, to ignore the warning. It's well known that a warning was given. It's all been in the papers. The warning wasn't acted upon. And the lads — the organization — issued an apology, as you know. It was meant to be a routine commercial bombing, the kind of thing ..." Finn's voice faltered against his nephew's unyielding expression.

Another bombing in Northern Ireland. This clearly wasn't the time to probe further into that. And what, if anything, did it have to do with Leo Killeen? Well, Michael would find out soon enough. In the meantime he would keep his own counsel. Brennan had given Michael a friendly warning that his interest in this country's past and politics might not be shared by everyone he would meet on the trip. Most people would be more interested in getting on with their lives than reliving and rehashing their history. Others would be all too interested, and Michael could bring trouble on himself if he said the wrong thing in the wrong company. He understood that.

But he couldn't banish the poor American preacher from his thoughts. "Perhaps Finn could put his two cents in. What I have in mind, Finn, and you can tell me whether you think there's any value in it, is a press conference held by Brennan and myself, and other priests, perhaps bishops and sisters, all of us calling on the Reverend Merle Odom's captors to release him to his family, no questions asked. Maybe Father Killeen would have some advice for us."

The dark glasses turned to Brennan, who eventually spoke up. "I think we're a little out of our depth here, Michael. These things tend to be more complicated than they might appear."

"Sure, you're right, I imagine. It's just that I can't get it out of my mind. An event like that, it tends to take on a life of its own, causing repercussions farther down the line. What did they say on the news about him leaving the hotel? Was he carrying anything with him? Was he in the habit of being up so early? Who was the last person to see him?"

"You'll have to forgive Mike, Finn. He missed his calling as Sergeant O'Flaherty of the Garda Síochána."

"Ah, now, Brennan," Mike said.

But his fellow priest had a point. Mike was a bit of a crime buff — no, better rephrase that! Mike wasn't in favour of crime of any sort. He deplored and feared violence, and did not understand how a person could bring himself to cause pain to another human being. Or even to animals. He himself feared stinging insects of all kinds, broke into a cold sweat whenever they buzzed around him; yet he felt guilty every time he squashed the life out of one. But he was keenly interested in detective work and crime-solving, and spent the little free time he had reading detective stories. Brennan was right: Mike liked to think that if he hadn't been called to the priesthood, he might indeed have become a policeman. And Sergeant O'Flaherty had a ring to it, no question! There was something else, too: the Protestant minister was a man of a certain age, as Mike was himself, and even if the fellow was in error theologically, even if he "dug with the wrong foot," as was often said of the Protestants, still, the thought of the elderly man being snatched from the street ...

(Continues...)

---

Excerpted from Death at Christy Burke's by Anne Emery. Copyright © 2011 Anne Emery. Excerpted by permission of ECW PRESS.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

---

Table of Contents

Prologue / 1
Chapter 1 / 5
Chapter 2 / 31
Chapter 3 / 48
Chapter 4 / 72
Chapter 5 / 88
Chapter 6 / 105
Chapter 7 / 126
Chapter 8 / 137
Chapter 9 / 161
Chapter 10 / 178
Chapter 11 / 209
Chapter 12 / 236
Chapter 13 / 247
Chapter 14 / 262
Chapter 15 / 287
Chapter 16 / 310
Chapter 17 / 330
Chapter 18 / 345
Chapter 19 / 354
Chapter 20 / 359
Acknowledgements / 371

Reading Group Guide

July 11, 1992
Michael
Nobody loved Ireland like Michael O’Flaherty. Well, no, that wasn’t quite the truth. How could he presume to make such a claim over the bodies of those who had been hanged or shot by firing squad in the struggle for Irish independence? Or those who had lived in the country all their lives, in good times and in bad, staving off the temptation to emigrate from their native soil? Nobody loved Ireland more than Michael did. He was on fairly safe ground there. He was a student of history, and his story led him straight back to Ireland. A four- cornered Irishman, he had four grandparents who emigrated from the old country to that most Irish of Canadian cities, Saint John, New Brunswick. His mother was fourteen when her parents brought her over on the boat in 1915, and Michael had inherited her soft lilting speech. He was in the old country yet again. How many times had he been here? He had lost count. Monsignor Michael O’Flaherty cut quite a figure in the tourist industry. The Catholic tourist industry, to be more precise. Every year he shepherded a flock of Canadian pilgrims around the holy sites of Ireland: Knock, Croagh Patrick, Glendalough. And he showed them something of secular Ireland as well — all too secular it was now, in his view, but never mind. He conducted tours of Dublin, Cork, Galway; it varied from year to year. All this in addition to his duties as pastor of St. Bernadette’s Church in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He had moved to Halifax as a young priest, after spending several years in the parishes of Saint John. Why not pack his few belongings in a suitcase and cross the ocean once and for all, making Ireland his home? Well, the truth was, he was attached to Nova Scotia, to his church, and to the people there. He had made friends, especially in the last couple of years. And two of those friends were in Dublin right now. He was on his way to meet them, having seen his latest group of tourists off at the airport for their journey home to Canada.He looked at his watch. It was half-noon. Brennan Burke had given him elaborate directions but there was no need. Michael knew the map of Dublin as well as he knew the Roman Missal, and he was only five minutes away from his destination at the corner of Mountjoy Street and St. Mary’s Place. His destination was Christy Burke’s pub. Michael, decked out as always in his black clerical suit and Roman collar, kept up a brisk pace along Dominick Street Upper until he reached Mountjoy and turned right. A short walk up the street and there it was. This was an inner-city area of Dublin and it had fallen on hard times. But the pub had a fresh coat of cream-coloured paint. There was a narrow horizontal band of black around the building above the door and windows. Set off against the black was the name “Christy Burke” in gold letters. Lovely! He pushed the door open and stepped inside. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the smoke and the darkness after the bright July sunshine.“Michael!” “Brennan, my lad! All settled in, I see. Good day to you, Monty!” Michael joined his friends at their table, where a pint of Guinness sat waiting for him. Brennan Burke was a fellow priest, Michael’s curate technically. But it was hard to think of Burke, with his doctorate in theology and his musical brilliance, as anybody’s curate. He had lived here in Dublin as a child, then immigrated to New York before he joined Michael at St. Bernadette’s in Halifax. It was a long story. Christy Burke was Brennan’s grandfather, long deceased by now, of course. Brennan himself was fifty or a little over. Young enough to be Michael’s son, if Michael had been tomcatting around in his seminary days, which he most certainly had not! In any case, they looked nothing alike. Brennan was tall with greying black hair and black eyes. Michael was short and slight, with white hair and eyes of blue. Monty Collins, though, could be mistaken for Michael’s son. Same colour eyes and fair hair. A few years younger than Brennan and deceptively boyish in appearance, Monty was their lawyer and confidant. Michael greatly enjoyed their company. So it was grand that they were able to arrange this time together in Dublin. Brennan had signed on to teach at the seminary in Maynooth for six weeks. Michael was on an extended vacation, with the blessings of his bishop. It was the first time he had been away for more than two weeks, ever. And why not? In any other job, he’d be retired by now! They had left the home parish in the capable hands of another priest they both knew. Monty, too, was on vacation. Told his office he was taking a month off. Made whatever arrangements he had to make for his law practice, and boarded the plane. So here they were.

Editorial Reviews

Emery’s sixth mystery (after 2010’s Children in the Morning) makes excellent use of its early 1990s Dublin setting and the period’s endemic violence between Protestants and Catholics. When Fr. Brennan Burke was 10 years old, Burke’s father, an IRA member, fled Ireland at gunpoint for the U.S., taking along his family. Despite this fraught history, the younger Burke has often visited his Irish birthplace. In 1992, he and his fellow priest, Michael O’Flaherty, are visiting Dublin at a sensitive time: American evangelist Merle Odom, who disappeared in Belfast, is believed to have been taken prisoner by the IRA, though no one has taken credit for the kidnapping. When Burke and O’Flaherty meet up at a Burke family business, Christy Burke’s pub (named for Burke’s grandfather), they learn that someone has painted graffiti on the tavern’s front wall suggesting that it’s a hangout for a killer or killers. Fascinated with crime-solving, the two priests get on the trail of the vandal who’s been defacing the pub. Emery blends the plot lines convincingly and resolves them realistically. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

Halifax lawyer Anne Emery’s terrific series featuring lawyer Monty Collins and priest Brennan Burke gets better with every book.” — Globe and Mail

From the Publisher

Arthur Ellis winner Emery brings back Monty Collins and Father Brennan Burke (Children in the Morning) to investigate troubles at the local Dublin pub.

Library Journal