Book 27, 2025

Murder at the Blarney Bash by Darci Hannah

My rating: 5 of 5 stars





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Last night I completed the book Murder at the Blarney Bash by Darci Hannah. This is the fifth in the “Beacon Bakeshop” cozy mystery series. The main character is baker Lindsey Bakewell.

As St Patrick’s Day approaches, Lindsey is busy creating an amazing array of themed goodies for her business, the Beacon Bakeshop. She’s also making items for the grand opening of a new, Irish-themed shop in town, owned by her boyfriend’s uncle, Finnigan O’Connor. Finn and his daughter, Colleen, have recently moved to Beacon Harbor from Ireland. Lindsey and many of the locals are bemused by Finn’s tall tales, but when he claims to have tracked a leprechaun and found his pot of gold, things take a turn for the bizarre. Lindsey herself swears she saw a leprechaun in town, and an employee at the Village Hall claims it was a leprechaun that attacked one of her co-workers. When the leprechaun himself is found murdered, Finn becomes a prime suspect. Not helping matters is the fact that he refuses to reveal where he found the gold, nor where he’s stashed it for safekeeping. Soon Lindsey and Rory are on the case, trying to create a timeline of the leprechaun’s movements, not only to discover who he was and what he was doing in town, but also to prove that Finnigan didn’t kill him.

This was very appropriate for the season, what with leprechauns and pots of gold, etc. The plot moved quickly and held my attention. In fact, I even dreamed about this book one night as I sought to make sense of it in my sleep. LOL! Characterizations were superb, and the baked goodies were making me drool. Nothing much made sense until the end, but it all came together neatly.

Favorite lines:
♦ Blood and glitter were definitely not a good mix. It was highly disturbing and looked utterly surreal.
♦ From now on Betty’s green Jell-O salad ought to be an Irish tradition.
♦ “The last one took him for all he was worth, the hoor.”
♦ “In the immortal words of Mr T, I pity the fool.”
♦ “They say that extreme wealth warps one’s sense of reality, but how warped do you have to be to go around clubbing the fairy folk?”
♦ “My night has been a bloody hellscape of leprechaun-driven lunacy!”

Alas, we also had the ‘didn’t realize I was holding my breath’ line: I exhaled, not realizing I’d been holding my breath.

Compelling and enchanting—five stars!