You Have Gone Too Far
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- £11.99
Publisher Description
With the haunting, moody prose of Tana French and the compulsive storytelling of Dervla McTiernan or Ann Cleeves, bestselling author Carlene O’Connor lures readers to a remote village on Ireland’s southwest coast, where winding windswept roads open to spectacular views of rugged cliffs against immense, lonely beaches . . . and some fear a mysterious cult could be connected to the disappearance of a young pregnant woman.
After two pregnant women in Dingle who have never met each receive a chilling email warning them that they’re in grave danger, the two decide to meet each other to figure out what is going on. But when one of the mothers, Shauna, a deaf woman, arrives at their meeting place at the village Spring Festival, she fears a trap and hurries off to meet the couple who plan to adopt her baby.
Meanwhile, Dimpna Wilde has her hands full with lambing season and keeping track of her father, so she’s grateful for the help of a well-meaning ten-year-old boy, Dylan, at the veterinary clinic. But when the lad goes missing after going into a bog on a dare with two other boys to search for a “monster,” she is desperate to help find him.
After the adoptive couple are discovered tied up in their home, telling a terrifying story of a deaf pregnant woman being abducted by a man wearing a butterfly mask, Detective Inspector Cormac O’Brien and Detective Sergeant Barbara Neely fear a repeat of a disturbing case from twenty years earlier, when a charismatic leader calling himself the Shepherd, lured poor pregnant girls into his enigmatic cult. Though allegations of baby smuggling were never proven, he’d been put away on other charges. But then they learn that the Shepherd has recently been released from prison.
Trapped in a cold, dark room with a frightened boy, Shauna fears for their lives as well as that of her unborn baby. If she has any chance of getting out and away from the Moth Man, as she calls her abductor, she’ll have to figure out the truth behind who she really is and how that connects to the ordeal she finds herself in now. But time is running out and her baby will be born soon . . .
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A rural Irish community faces the return of a violent cult leader in O'Connor's chilling third outing for veterinarian Dimpna Wilde (after Some of Us Are Looking). Decades ago, the town of Dingle was terrorized by Cahal Mackey, who called himself the Shepherd and recruited young, pregnant women to his cult. Though one of Mackey's followers was discovered with her throat slit and her baby cut out of her womb, authorities couldn't link Mackey to her death, and instead arrested him on drug and weapons charges. Twenty-nine years later, Mackey is released from prison and tragedy strikes Dingle once again: one pregnant woman is found dead in a bog, and another is abducted while meeting with her unborn baby's adoptive parents. Dimpna gets involved when she learns that Mackey paid a recent visit to her veterinary clinic and may have targeted her decades ago. She offers to help Det. Insp. Cormac O'Brien and Det. Sgt. Barbara Neely track Mackey down and prove his guilt. O'Connor's gift for atmosphere elevates the well-oiled plot, resulting in the series' best entry yet.
