Weekly Reader: Murder By The Coven(A Belfast Murder Mystery Book 3) by Brian O'Hare; Supernatural Unnecessarily Brought In For Otherwise Thrilling Police Procedural Murder Mystery
By Julie Sara Porter
Bookworm Reviews
Spoilers: Granted, I have only read two books in Brian O'Hare's the Belfast Murder Mystery Series, so it's hard to tell which is the weird one: Murder by The Coven for openly involving the supernatural or Murder on the Dark Web which is a police procedural which does not. Judging by the description of the other three books in the series, Murder by The Coven is the most likely outlier. Because of that, it is nowhere near as powerful and graphic as Murder on the Dark Web.
Now don't get me wrong, I love supernatural mysteries. I love when the protagonist has psychic abilities along with massive powers of deduction in their arsenal. I love when "murder by dark magic" could logically be considered as a means for murder. I don't even mind when genres mix. However, in a long term series it has to do it from the beginning. To throw supernatural demonic influences on a mystery series which was fine being a typical police procedural with human murderers and pedophiles is jarring at best and sends mixed messages at worst.
Maybe I am particularly hard on Murder By The Coven because I loved reading Dark Web Murders so much. In fact it was one of my favorite mysteries that I read this year so the follow up was bound to be lacking in comparison. Murder on the Dark Web subverted the ideas of heroes and villains, good and bad, by making the murder victims reprehensible and guilty of crimes in which they were never caught nor charged because of their wealth and power. The murderer was victimized by these horrible people and seeks vengeance the only that they can. However, the fact that they take it too far and harm innocent people makes the murderer a bit hard to root for though understandable. The subversion is ever present and was what made The Dark Web Murders so great.
Murder by the Coven also has some of those same themes. When it explores that theme, it is very exciting and thrilling.
The prologue is set in 1995 and takes place during a terrifying ritual. A woman is brutally murdered in a sacrifice by a Satanic cult. The cult members are hooded and unidentified. Twenty one years later, an older couple is murdered. Meanwhile, Sheehan and his team investigate the skeleton of a woman that has been dead for over 20 years. After some investigating, the team learns that there is a connection among the skeleton, the couple's murders, and the Satanic coven which is alive and well.
Murder by the Coven is similar to Murder on the Dark Web which the rich and powerful's crimes are buried because of names and connections. Many people are left suffering in their wake and one seeks vengeance because of a lifetime of suffering from actions that have gone unpunished. Some of the murderer's actions are unconscionable and their overall personality is very different from the previous murderer of the Murder on the Dark Web. Many times they are just as cold blooded and methodical as the coven of Satanists. The Satanists created the circumstances in which the murderer acts and the murderer takes it to a higher level. The Satanists are the cause and the murderer is the effect.
There is some heart stopping suspense and a nice subplot involving coroner, Andrew Jones and Selena Carrington, a young woman involved in the investigation. When Murder by the Coven is set in the procedural world, it works.
That is how this book should be, unfortunately it isn't always like that. In the last book (and from reading the descriptions of the other books), faith is a strong theme throughout the series. Sheehan is a die-hard Catholic and in Belfast, the struggles between Catholics and Protestants are still present. In fact, the book is set against the backdrop of The Twelfth, an important day in Ulster history honoring William of Orange, the Protestant King of England. The Twelfth is still a day of contention between the Christian denominations in Northern Ireland. Sheehan and his team put their own religious divide and personal animosity to keep the peace. Faith and spirituality is important to the series but it has always been in the background until Murder by the Coven.
What doesn't work is that the book takes a hard left into the paranormal. One of the coven members invokes a demon to curse Sheehan and his crew. Suddenly,this awesome police force and their loved ones act like bickering and whining children accusing each other of infidelity, police corruption, and sloppy investigation tactics. If these were presented as legitimate concerns that the characters have had over the years that manifested itself into internal suspicion, petty bickering, or even joking asides or disagreements, it could be symptomatic of buried resentments now coming into focus because of a stressful case. But no, instead one minute they are acting as a team and the next they can't stand to be in the same room together. It takes the work of an exorcist to break the curse.
This subplot could have worked as a maybe magic maybe mundane situation where coincidences or hidden circumstances that could be attributed to otherworldly forces but it is so blatant here and seems to come from The Exorcist rather than a realistic crime drama.
This passage almost sends the book to an unnecessary detour into the supernatural. The Sheehan series seemed to exist in a regular real world where human beings sometimes did despicable hateful
things to other human beings. They didn't need demonic influences to act. Sometimes the darkest hearts can be with humanity itself and they get justly punished for their actions. Inserting paranormal forces into a series that didn't occur before is like throwing a dragon into Ed McBain's 87th Precinct series. It may shake things up and it was probably O'Hare's intention to do something different with this book. But it comes across as awkward and in this case contradicts messages from the other books.
Murder by the Coven seems to imply that the coven got where they were: rich, powerful, and corrupt because of their pact with Satan. It's the old "Devil Made Me Do It" defense that demonic influence, not human behavior, is the real enemy. So in this world if the Devil influences characters, does that work for the rest of the series? (I hope not. That club in Murder on the Dark Web are complete human a$#@_&es who definitely didn't deserve such an out.) Putting demons in a series that previously didn't have it removes the thought that ultimately humans are responsible for their actions for good or bad.
In a different book, the supernatural might have been an interesting addition to a crime drama series, but not in this one which operates and depends so much on real world issues and real world laws. Perhaps instead O'Hare could do a supernatural based series which directly involves such diabolic vs. angelic conflicts but not in a
police procedural series and, volume in particular, which worked just as well without it.
