THE MOUNTAINS WILD - Sarah Stewart Taylor
A Perfect 10
Minotaur Books
ISBN-10: 1250256437
ISBN-13: 978-1250256430
June 2020
Mystery

Dublin, Ireland - 1993 and 2016

It has been twenty-three years since Maggie D'Arcy's cousin, Erin, disappeared while visiting Ireland. Maggie is now a homicide detective in Long Island, New York, and when her uncle, Erin's father, gets a call from the police in Dublin, Maggie knows she must help get her uncle some peace. When Erin vanished in 1993, it was Maggie who flew to Ireland to try to find some answers. Now, after speaking to the detective inspector in Dublin about a scarf belonging to Erin having been found in the woods in an area south of the city, Maggie is again heading back to Ireland. 

Gardai Detective Roland (Roly) Byrne, who was on Erin's case in 1993, meets Maggie at the station and they discuss the findings. There isn't much to go on, but Maggie knows that the scarf is one she gave Erin for Christmas the year she disappeared. To add to the mystery, there is another young woman who recently disappeared that Roly and his partner are looking for. Once Maggie gets her feet on the ground, she also discovers that several other young women were kidnapped and murdered around the same time or shortly after Erin's disappearance. Then a body is discovered in the woods near where Erin's scarf was found. Could it be Maggie's cousin?

Maggie tells the story, as well as revealing her feelings as she, Roly, and Roly's partner, Griz, comb through what evidence they have. It doesn't help that there is someone Maggie met on her first trip twenty- three years ago that weighs heavy on her mind now. Does he have any idea what happened to Erin? And what of the mysterious men that Erin met in a Dublin pub? Why was Erin so determined to go to the mountains? 

THE MOUNTAINS WILD is a brilliant, beautifully written mystery with a thoughtful, logical, but all too human heroine in Maggie D'Arcy. Readers will be stunned at the conclusion. I highly recommend THE MOUNTAINS WILD.

Jani Brooks