All Souls — John Brady

Winter seems to have come early over Clare, on the west coast of Ireland, Inspector Matt Minogue's home county. When Minogue returns to help sort out his nephew's run-in with the law, he meets Aloysious Crossan, a brilliant, eccentric IRA lawyer who convinces him to stay for a while. It's All Souls Day and the devout are praying for the souls' release from Purgatory. The morning fogs, the steady drizzle, the empty oceans close by -- a bleak setting for a most peculiar investigation.

Crossan wants Minogue to reopen the file of one Jamesy Bourke, a convicted murderer recently released from prison. Loathed by the locals and the survivor of a nervous breakdown, Bourke is a lost soul indeed. Minogue himself is close to burnout, and this long-dead case strikes a chord in his beleaguered psyche.