The Rising of the Moon

Just in time for the holidays, New York Times bestselling author Sheila Connolly gives you a short story that will whet your appetite and last just as long as your tea stays warm.

In this quick taste of Sheila’s mysteries, a neighborhood that takes care of their own sometimes has to take care of business . . .

“Dinty’s Bar has occupied the same corner in Cambridge since before I was born. Not the Cambridge with the glitzy shops and exotic restaurants catering to parents dropping their little darlings off at the Big H, or the Cambridge filled with techy wonks. Dinty’s keeps a toehold in the back end of Cambridge, between Central Square and the river. Its patrons come from the neighborhood and they’re pretty consistent: blue-collar, mostly construction workers, a scattering of cops and firefighters, all Irish in some way or another. Somehow this little area called Cambridgeport has escaped the gentrification that has crept through the city, and that’s the way the people here like it.

I’m the one who doesn’t belong. I was one of those pampered students, and when I graduated I didn’t know what I wanted to do, or at least I knew what I didn’t want to do. I wanted some time with no grades, no letters of recommendation, no internships and interviews to make a professor or parent proud. Nope, I just wanted to stick around for a while and breathe. My bewildered parents didn’t put up much of an argument, and as a graduation present they gave their baby boy enough cash to put a deposit on a top-floor apartment in a rundown triple-decker, with enough left over to buy a bed and a kitchen table with a couple of chairs.

I heard about the opening behind the bar at Dinty’s through a friend of a friend, and I’d wandered in with no expectations and gotten the job. Just for the summer, I thought. Three summers later I’m still here. After one of those increasingly rare calls from my folks, I try to convince myself that I’m collecting information for a novel that I’ll probably never write. Mostly I’m drifting and watching. It suits me, at least for now.”

And so begins the latest short story from New York Times bestselling mystery author Sheila Connolly. Loosely based on an old Irish ballad, The Rising of the Moon tells the tale of a young bartender at an Irish pub in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and how, together with the community, he takes a stand against crime.

In addition to the story, readers will get a sneak peek into the first book in Sheila’s new County Cork Mystery Series, Buried in a Bog.

About the Author:

Sheila Connolly began writing mysteries in 2001, and has since been nominated for an Agatha Award twice. Her most recent books are the New York Times bestselling Sour Apples (Orchard Mystery Series) and Fire Engine Dead (Museum Mystery Series). Her new series, set in Ireland, will debut with Buried in a Bog in 2013. Sheila lives in Massachusetts with her husband, daughter, and three cats.