Goodnight, Irene (Irene Kelly Mysteries)
by By Burke, Jan
Category: Fiction , Thrillers , Suspense

Goodnight, Irene is the debut novel in an exciting new mystery series featuring Irene Kelly - reporter, intrepid amateur sleuth, and woman of today - who tracks a murderer obsessed with keeping the past from interfering with the future.In Las Piernas, California, a beach community off the coast of Los Angeles, veteran reporter O'Connor is blown to bits by a bomb; his son is buried alive in the sand; and his best friend and former colleague, Irene Kelly, is nearly killed when a stream of bullets whizzes through the window of her home. Unwilling to be the next victim in a frightening series of events, and determined to discover who murdered O'Connor, Irene takes it upon herself to track down the killer.She begins investigating by digging through O'Connor's files and deciphering his highly secretive, coded notes. Irene soon discovers that her friend was on the verge of solving a thirty-five-year-old mystery involving a pregnant woman who was brutally murdered and mutilated beyond recognition. And, this old murder mystery is somehow connected with a current political cover-up concocted by a group of local politicians involved in a greedy - and deadly - money-laundering scheme.Irene follows a lead that takes her from her California beach community to a desert Arizona town and back, determined to find out who silenced O'Connor before he could reveal the connection between the old murder mystery and the current money-laundering scheme. Ignoring deadly threats, Irene expertly gathers clues, and narrows down a long list of unlikely suspects. There's a money-hungry-politician with more to lose than the local race if the truth is revealed; a high society babe who will do anything to protect her "impeccable" reputation; a manipulative gigolo whose bedside secrets prove lethal; a high-ranking bank official who conveniently disappears when Irene starts nosing around; and many other memorable characters, all of whom had a personal motive for wanting O'Connor dead.To add to the tension, Irene finds herself working closely with a man from her past, handsome police detective Frank Harriman. Love is what neither expects, but it hits them both - and hard, complicating matters as they try to protect each other from someone so desperate to keep secrets, past and present, hidden that he will eliminate anyone who comes too close to the truth.