The author of the Sweeney St. George series bring the first in a new series to readers in The Mountains Wild.

Featuring an American police detective investigating in Ireland, with scenes on Long Island, Taylor captures the landscape and the people in both places.

Auntie M grew up on Long Island and the North Shore is well represented. She’s never been to Ireland, but after this book, it’s gone up a few notches on her bucket list.

When her cousin Erin disappeared twenty-three years ago, Maggie D’Arcy flew over to Ireland, spending weeks there trying to get to the bottom of what happened to Erin.

Small clues left didn’t help, and there was no trace of Erin when she left to come back home. Told with flashbacks to Long Island in 1993 and the cousins lives then, contrasted with Maggie’s first trip over, the current time frame is interspersed in a new investigation.

The case and its influence turned Maggie into the detective she’s become. Then the Gardai get in touch again: Erin’s scarf has been found; another young woman has gone missing.

Maggie is now is a divorced mom of a teen who works for the homicide squad. She takes time off when the cold case calls her back to Dublin and its outskirts. She’s also determined to face the ghosts she left behind, as she must find out what happened to Erin. Maggie will use all the skills she’s learned in the intervening years to do that, while hoping to save the lift of the most recently abducted young woman, despite the cost to herself.

It’s a compelling mix with a startling twist at the end that leaves the reader in no doubt Taylor has a hit new series on her hands. Highly recommended.