Callous

Inheriting a Galway cottage may change a troubled woman’s life-but not the way she hopes-in this thriller from an original, grimly hilarious author (The Washington Post).

Kate Mitchell’s in the process of kicking her heroin addiction-with the help of alcohol-when a letter arrives informing her that her aunt in Ireland has passed away and bequeathed her a home near the ocean. This could be the start of a new and better life for Kate, far away from Brooklyn, where she and her surviving brothers are each struggling with their own dark pasts.

But Aunt Mary didn’t die peacefully-quite the opposite. The pair of thugs responsible for her murder had plans for her house: namely, turning it into a lovely seaside meth lab. One of Mary’s killers, however, finds his focus shifting when he spots a photo of the dead woman’s American niece, who bears a striking resemblance to the late opera singer Maria Callas, the beloved object of his obsession. When Kate and her brothers arrive to claim her inheritance, they’re going to find something other than a piece of paradise …

Nobody writes like Ken Bruen, with his ear for lilting Irish prose and his taste for the kind of gallows humor heard only at the foot of the gallows. -The New York Times

Bruen has a rich and mordant writing style, full of offbeat humor. -Publishers Weekly