"Murder Beyond the Pale"

Wendy Church is the author of the Jesse O’Hara and Shadows of Chicago Mysteries series. The first book in the Jesse O’Hara series, Murder on the Spanish Seas, was named one of Booklist’s Top Ten Debut Mystery/Thriller novels of 2023, and received a starred review.

Church applied the Page 69 Test to Murder Beyond the Pale, the second Jesse O’Hara mystery, and reported the following:

On page 69 of Murder Beyond the Pale, the main protagonist, Jesse O’Hara, and her best friend, Sam, are talking with Leo, the boyfriend of the missing young woman, Cait Gallagher. Leo shares that the reason that Cait has kept their relationship a secret from her family is because his father was in the IRA. The page shares a little bit about Jesse's best friend Sam’s ability to connect with people.

Browsers opening to this page would get some idea of the book, as it includes a few of the elements that make up the essence of the novel: a missing woman in Ireland, the IRA, and the relationship between Jesse O’Hara and her best friend Sam.

There are two principal elements in the book that are missing on this page. The first is the snarky running internal dialogue of the introverted, profane and often inebriated Jesse, which makes up a significant part of the book, as well as the series. The second is Jesse’s relationship with Ireland. Each of the Jesse O’Hara novels is set in a different country, and how she navigates the countries is central to each. In this book set in Ireland, a good portion of Jesse’s attention is on the various brands of Irish whiskey, and also the family’s business, a stallion semen farm.

Visit Wendy Church's website.

The Page 69 Test: Murder on the Spanish Seas.

Q&A with Wendy Church.

My Book, The Movie: Murder on the Spanish Seas.

--Marshal Zeringue