Irish tweed A Nuala Anne McGrail novel

Greeley follows his well-established pattern in his latest Nuala Anne McGrail novel. Although the prescient Nuala Anne and her loving if slightly bemused husband, Dermot Michael Coyne, are busy attempting to prevent bullies from overtaking the local parish school, they still manage to find time to solve a mystery involving their nanny's new love interest. When it appears someone is trying to kill young Finnbar Burke, Nuala Anne and Dermot, with the able assistance of Cardinal Blackie Ryan and a host of Wabash Avenue Irregulars, quietly tackle the case. As they wrestle with figurative and literal demons, their story is juxtaposed with the tale of a nineteenth-century Irish immigrant who became one of the first female physicians in the Chicago area and helped solved a perplexing medical mystery during a smallpox epidemic. Although Greeley does a nice job illuminating some little-known facts about Irish American history as he interweaves the past and the present, his penchant for stereotyping his characters detracts from the narrative flow. Still, dedicated Greeley fans will relish another cozy, feel-good visit with the zany McGrail-Coyne clan.--Flanagan, Margaret Copyright 2009 Booklist

At the start of Greeley's spirited 12th Nuala Anne McGrail novel (after 2008's Irish Tiger), his feisty heroine delivers a black belt kick to the unlikable new principal's stomach in a schoolyard brawl involving all four of her children. Solving the bullying problem at St. Joe's isn't the only challenge facing Irish-born Nuala and her adoring husband, Dermot Michael Coyne. They must also figure out who beat and threw Finnbar Burke, the "nice fella" with whom their shy, golden-haired nanny has fallen in love, into the Chicago River. Interspersed with the present-day action is the poignant story of an Irish girl who came to America after all her immediate family died in the famine of 1875. While some readers may feel Greeley dwells too much on Nuala and Dermot's joyous sex life and overdoes the Irish dialect, few can resist the charm of these colorful, warm characters and the author's sympathetic view of the Irish of Chicago. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Nuala Anne takes a break from her customary diet of murder to educate her children's school principal. Suddenly, the school in St. Joe's parish where Nuala Anne McGrail Coyne has been contentedly enrolling her brood is under new supervision. Dr. Lorraine Fletcher, who's straight out of Dickens, cherishes a hatred for Nuala Anne that's straight out of pathology textbooks. Fletcher is a devout believer in what she calls the "fundamental option for the poor." In the topsy-turvy Catholic school she envisions, indigent big kids are encouraged to bully affluent little kids and pocket their money as a first step toward the proper redistribution of wealth. This trickle-up approach to economics leads to a donnybrook in which Nuala Anne gets a slap in the chops and, in exchange, Fletcher gets a kick in the gut from "a newly minted black belt." Meanwhile, Dermot Michael, spear-carrier and ever-adoring husband, checks out a memoir furnished to him by his father that describes the turbulent life of a female doctor in late 19th-century Chicago, while lovely, golden-haired Julie Crean, the Coynes's irredeemably wholesome nanny, checks out Finnbar Burke, a potential fella. It's Finnbar, incidentally, whose brief immersion in the Chicago River, where he's been tossed by person or persons unknown, supplies the sole claim to membership in the mystery genre that the latest McGrail confection (Irish Tiger, 2008, etc.) can offer. Blarney-soaked and relentlessly cute. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.