The Mountains Wild by Sarah Stewart Taylor

A young American of Irish descent disappears in Ireland. Erin Flaherty had a habit of running away since childhood, so is this an innocent game, or has something bad actually occurred? Erin’s Long Island detective cousin, Maggie D’arcy, has made it her business to find out.

A story which goes back and forth over 23 years of Erin’s disappearance (from 1993-2016) heats up when Maggie returns to Ireland to follow up on new clues. Other young girls have also gone missing in the same area, so detective Maggie, with no jurisdiction in Ireland, but with friends in the Gardaí, plugs along to follow up on clues without seeming to interfere with the Irish investigators.

There is a lot of interviewing people while counting on the accuracy of their long-term memories, and even hunches, while Maggie has flashbacks of events of her childhood with Erin. The conclusion is a stretch you could never see coming, but resolves the mystery. As an aside, you will also learn some Irish history along the way and why England and Ireland have the difficult relationship they do.

A solid thriller from an experienced author. I hope she writes more in this genre. This has all the elements of a good thriller -- suspense, tension, interesting characters, good dialog, an interesting setting, along with a talented author to tell the tale in a compelling way. Enough said. This is likely to sell quite well.

I really appreciate the ARC for review!!

The tension Sarah Stewart Taylor creates in "The Mountains Wild" with a 3 a.m. phone call continues to build all the way through the book. The author's skillful storytelling draws the reader so far into each scene that they assume their lips are caked with ocean salt and their hair tangled by Irish winds.

The phone call notifies Maggie D'arcy in Long Island of a new clue in the 23-year-old case of her missing cousin.. Erin disappeared in the mountains of Ireland six months after she moved to Dublin in 1993. Maggie spent weeks in Ireland watching police search for clues. Now, 23 years later, she works as a New York police detective and returns to Ireland determined to finally solve the case.

She renews acquaintances with several memorable characters while enjoying Dublin city and the mountains to the south. The progress of her relationships is as intriguing as the trail she follows to find out what happened to her cousin.

4.5 stars / This review will be posted at BookwormishMe.com on 9 June 2020 .


Maggie, who comes from a long line of proud Irish ancestors, is a homicide detective in New York. Back in the 1990s, her cousin Erin, more like a sister than a cousin, opted to move to Ireland. Then one day her father, Maggie’s Uncle Danny, gets a call that Erin is missing. Maggie hops a plane to Ireland.

During her stay in Ireland, Maggie meets many of Erin’s friends and coworkers, but no one truly seems to have known Erin very well. Maggie follows the leads of things Erin left behind, photos and notes, but the trail seems to simply stop where Erin was last seen. After Maggie has exhausted all resources, she heads home to New York. Erin is never far from her mind, however.

Flash forward twenty years and there is another young girl missing from the same area where Erin was last seen. Maggie is now a celebrated detective having solved a serial killer crime in Long Island. When the call comes to Uncle Danny that something has been found, Maggie reaches out to her contact in Ireland, Detective Byrne. Maggie is suddenly back in Ireland, retracing the steps of Erin once again, and hoping that this time the outcome is different.

Absolutely loved this book. What a ride through past and present watching two young women’s lives forever changed by simple acts. Taylor has written a very compelling and page turning novel with multiple twists that I never could have imagined. She gives us light lessons in the history of Ireland and Northern Ireland, the IRA and Irish Mafia. It is all seamlessly melded together in a cohesive and very well written novel.

Maggie has been looking for her cousinErin, for over twenty years. Last she heard she was in Ireland. Than she disappeared.
Maybe her cousin's disappearance is what made her decide to become a police officer.
All she knows that with the discovery of a body she needs to go back to Ireland and see if there are any more clues.
This is a great story. It describes the relationship of cousins. The closeness they feel. It also tells of the losing of each other, how each go their separate ways.
I love the Irish names and the description of the surroundings.
The twist and turns of course keep you guessing. Sometimes you feel you've got it figured out only to discover you dont.
Strong characters, very likable.
Great storyline.

A strong New series in the mystery genre. This is definitely one I will follow. Women are missing in Ireland, including the cousin of current Long Island Police Detective Maggie D'arcy. The story goes back and forth spanning years before to current day. The characters are richly developed. The locations are created realistically and the troubled history is featured. All components of a great book with a little love story and some unexpected twists and turns. One of the best mysteries I have read this year.

Copy provided by the Publisher and NetGalley

THE MOUNTAINS WILD - Sarah Stewart Taylor
Mystery

Dublin, Ireland - 1993 and 2016

It has been twenty-three years since Maggie D'Arcy's cousin, Erin, disappeared while visiting Ireland. Maggie is now a homicide detective in Long Island, New York, and when her uncle, Erin's father, gets a call from the police in Dublin, Maggie knows she must help get her uncle some peace. When Erin vanished in 1993, it was Maggie who flew to Ireland to try to find some answers. Now, after speaking to the detective inspector in Dublin about a scarf belonging to Erin having been found in the woods in an area south of the city, Maggie is again heading back to Ireland.

Gardai Detective Roland (Roly) Byrne, who was on Erin's case in 1993, meets Maggie at the station and they discuss the findings. There isn't much to go on, but Maggie knows that the scarf is one she gave Erin for Christmas the year she disappeared. To add to the mystery, there is another young woman who recently disappeared that Roly and his partner are looking for. Once Maggie gets her feet on the ground, she also discovers that several other young women were kidnapped and murdered around the same time or shortly after Erin's disappearance. Then a body is discovered in the woods near where Erin's scarf was found. Could it be Maggie's cousin?

Maggie tells the story, as well as revealing her feelings as she, Roly, and Roly's partner, Griz, comb through what evidence they have. It doesn't help that there is someone Maggie met on her first trip twenty- three years ago that weighs heavy on her mind now. Does he have any idea what happened to Erin? And what of the mysterious men that Erin met in a Dublin pub? Why was Erin so determined to go to the mountains?

THE MOUNTAINS WILD is a brilliant, beautifully written mystery with a thoughtful, logical, but all too human heroine in Maggie D'Arcy. Readers will be stunned at the conclusion. I highly recommend THE MOUNTAINS WILD.

4.5 stars

First, my apologies to Sarah Stewart Taylor. I've been raving about her “debut novel,” but after doing a little research (i.e. googling) I realized she's already written an entire cozy mystery series. I suppose one reason I made the mistake is because The Mountains Wild is a really good book. Which is not to say her series isn't also good--it probably is--but only that I'm surprised she isn't more well known. It may be because The Mountains Wild is such a departure from her previous work. Warmth suffuses this novel, but there's nothing cozy about it. Rather, it's a gripping psychological thriller more in the vein of Tana French, Yrsa Siguroardottir and Karin Slaughter.

After 23 years spent not knowing what happened to her cousin, Maggie D'Arcy learns that Erin's blood-stained scarf has turned up at the spot where another young woman has just gone missing. Maggie hasn't been back to Ireland since Erin disappeared and she has the usual overscheduled life of a divorced working mom. But she's never forgotten the trip she initially made to Ireland in 1993, shortly after Erin went missing. And she's never put what happened to her cousin to rest. In fact, it's the reason she became a police detective in Long Island. So after leaving her teenage daughter in the care of her ex, she catches a flight to Dublin. Maybe this time she'll get it right. Maybe she can finally discover what happened to Erin—and save the life of Niamh Horrigan. Because Erin may have been the first woman to go missing in the mountains near Glenmalure and Niamh the last, but there have been several other women who've vanished from the same area in the intervening years. The Irish Gardai believe the cases are related and Maggie tends to agree. But can they find the abductor before Niamh dies?

Told solely from Maggie's point of view, The Mountains Wild is both a thrilling ride and a “love letter to Ireland” (as Taylor states in her acknowledgements). There are plenty of plot twists that kept me guessing and the final revelation was well done. The narrative alternates between 1993, 2016 and the distant past, when Maggie and Erin were growing up together. In addition, Taylor weaves bits of Irish songs, history, literature and language throughout the novel. There are quirky references to Ulysses (and chickens!), snippets of “rebel songs that tell stories,” bits of Irish history and even the obligatory Yeats quote. The overall effect of all this is a skillfully wrought tale that kept my attention from beginning to end. The pacing isn't break-neck – new dead bodies aren't turning up every other chapter – but the action unravels steadily and builds to a satisfying, exciting conclusion.

However, the two things I like best about The Mountains Wild are the characters and the setting. I got a strong sense of Maggie but even secondary characters seem fleshed out. Her complicated relationship with Erin is especially well done; it's ironic but lovely that the woman who has been absent for the longests is the most vivid person in the novel. And the depiction of Ireland is also lovely. Though she is an American, Stewart studied at Trinity and spent years in Dublin. Her knowledge and love for the country comes through on every page. As is true of most mysteries, there were a few issues with the plot and there were a lot of things to tie up at the end, maybe some that needed a bit more explanation. I kept thinking she hadn't wrapped up this or that, but after going through it all point by point, I found she had indeed done so.
Stewart's web site lists this thriller as part of a series, though no future books are listed. I certainly hope there will be more Maggie D'Arcy mysteries to come. Much thanks to St. Martin's Press and Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The Mountains Wild is my favorite book of the year so far, and I can tell right now, it'll be hard to beat.

It's been more than twenty years since Maggie D'arcy's cousin Erin went missing in Dublin, but when Roly, the detective who worked the original case, calls with new information and potentially devastating news, Maggie knows she must return to Ireland--maybe not to find her cousin alive, but with the hope of finding answers and closure. And while part of her longs to be back in Dublin, D'arcy knows it also means becoming involved in an investigation of another missing girl, digging up old memories, old pain, and old suspicions.

The way Taylor structured the book worked really well here. Flashbacks and memories inextricably linked with the present, slowly building tension and suspicion. This didn't read as a slow burn, though, more like a masterfully-crafted puzzle of suspense and mystery. Side characters have well-developed story arcs and personalities that connect with the main characters in a way that enhances the doubt you feel as you read. At no point did I ever feel like I had a solid grasp on who the perpetrator was, and because of this, the page-turning conclusion was satisfying and thrilling.

In the acknowledgements, Taylor said this book was like a love letter to Ireland, and I felt her love breathing in every page. The prose is lyrical, beautiful in its description and wrought with history. I appreciated the bits of Irish song, language, and the geographical walk-throughs of Dublin. I traveled there myself in my early twenties, and I felt more connected to the D'arcy rediscovering her old stomping grounds because I had a crisp visual of Temple Bar in my mind.

What I truly appreciated, though, was how much common sense and real-life decision making her characters employed. So often in thrillers we get caught up in the blood and murder, stretching the boundaries of disbelief. None of that felt present here. D'arcy follows rules. She is a good detective who understands that being a hero doesn't mean there's always a happy ending. When pearls of distrust arise, she doesn't embark on some revenge-filled spy scene to find the truth. She communicates her feelings to the other person, and while this seems simple, it was so refreshing to read a book that relied on more grounded scenarios. Instead of being surprised at the outlandishness, I was pleasantly surprised at how normal the characters were, and that made them all the more heartbreaking as the story progressed.

Beautiful, atmospheric, and engrossing, The Mountains Wild is one you truly don't want to miss.

This tale is a truly lush American/Irish mystery with all the complicated friend and familial relations that you expect to find. Switching back and forth in a 23-year time gap, what starts as a missing person case evolves into a narrative that shows how a traumatic event can impact the trajectory of so many lives. All the characters are multi-dimensional and dramatically set against the ever-changing landscape of Ireland (with some of Long Island New York thrown in as well); I quickly became immersed in this novel with a very Irish ending (to not give too much away).

The Mountains Wild is a tough ride of a book about a woman. Maggie D'Arcy, whose cousin was presumed missing in 1993 and not seen again. The book toggles between 1993 and 2016 when another woman goes missing at the same exact area as her cousin. The majority of the book is set in Ireland with some set on the east coast of the US. Maggie is a police detective in the US, so going to Ireland to start looking for her cousin again and the new missing woman is hard for her. The book has many twists and turns with an ending that I don't think anyone will see coming.
I had a hard time with this book. Don't get me wrong--the story was good and I had a hard time putting it down. But...the author had so many loose threads that she ties up in nice, neat bows by the end that I had a hard time keeping track of them all and for a lot of them I was scratching my head and saying "huh?" There are so many characters and locations, and the descriptions of these people and places as well as an excessive amount of history of Ireland and use of the Irish language makes the book tedious many times. A moderate amount of description and side history makes a story interesting; the amount the author used in this book annoyed me.
Do I recommend this book? Yes, but with caveats--read it in one sitting so you can remember all of the threads, or take notes.

I would give this book a 4.5! I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. The mystery, as well as the setting, drew me in and I did not want to put the book down. The characters were great and I felt as though I really knew them all. I was continually guessing as to what could have really happened to the missing girls, and I certainly did not see the ending coming.
This was not a perfect book--there were a couple of things I might have changed, and I do wish a little bit of the final reveal could have been fleshed out just a bit, but it absolutely did not take away from my enjoyment of the book. I feel like this could be a series on TV or Netflix. I would love to watch these characters, the way they interacted with each other, and the way they worked to solve the mystery and do their jobs.
I finished the book feeling very satisfied, yet hoping the author would turn these characters into a series. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who likes mysteries, suspense, thrillers, or anyone who loves Ireland!