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The Winter Guest

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What to expect


The drive leads past the gate house and through the trees towards the big house, visible through the winter-bared branches. Its windows stare down at Harkin and the sea beyond . . .

January 1921. Though the Great War is over, in Ireland a new, civil war is raging. The once-grand Kilcolgan House, a crumbling bastion shrouded in sea-mist, lies half empty and filled with ghosts - both real and imagined - the Prendevilles, the noble family within, co-existing only as the balance of their secrets is kept.

Then, when an IRA ambush goes terribly wrong, Maud Prendeville, eldest daughter of Lord Kilcolgan, is killed, leaving the family reeling. Yet the IRA column insist they left her alive, that someone else must have been responsible for her terrible fate. Captain Tom Harkin, an IRA intelligence officer and Maud's former fiancé, is sent to investigate, becoming an unwelcome guest in this strange, gloomy household.

Working undercover, Harkin must delve into the house's secrets - and discover where, in this fractured, embattled town, each family member's allegiances truly lie. But Harkin too is haunted by the ghosts of the past and by his terrible experiences on the battlefields. Can he find out the truth about Maud's death before the past - and his strange, unnerving surroundings - overwhelm him?

A haunting, atmospheric mystery set against the raw Irish landscape in a country divided, The Winter Guest is the perfect chilling read.

Cover illustration based on an image of Lissadell House by kind permission of the owners

Critics Review

Ryan evokes this moody, gothic atmosphere with convincing skill. Harkin is a sensitive, complex character and his quest to solve the mystery is deftly plotted. A treat.
The Times
A haunting, gripping novel . . . hugely evocative, with some absolutely beautiful writing which captures the profound unease of the times and the bleak nature of the landscape. I really loved this book.
Elodie Harper, The Wolf Den
A terrifically atmospheric, gripping novel.
Amanda Craig, author of The Golden Rule
Ryan writes with precision and elegance... This is the best historical crime novel set in Ireland I have read.
Literary Review
In 2018, WC Ryan published A House Of Ghosts, a superb period mystery with spooky overtones, and now he returns with an equally engrossing read. A clever whodunnit with a bracing whiff of the supernatural.
Daily Express
A snowflake of a novel: intricate, exquisite, and unlike any other. Here, as in his every book, Ryan once again recalls Graham Greene - the command of plot, the precision of language - but The Winter Guest also finds him summoning the dark-rose spectres of haunted-house classics like The Woman in Black. If Sebastian Faulks and Laura Purcell were to join forces, they might produce a novel like this... yet I can't imagine anyone but WC Ryan shaping it with such imagination, or charging it with such intelligence, or gracing it with such heart.
AJ Finn, international bestselling author of The Woman in the Window
The Winter Guest works superbly on several levels. As a mystery it unfolds in well-constructed, satisfyingly dramatised scenes, with sharp dialogue and an especially nice line in flirtatious banter. Ryan deftly sketches the contours of a society where friends and mortal enemies live at close quarters, and explores those shifting, volatile allegiances with subtlety and nuance. This is a most welcome winter guest indeed, to be greeted by the fire with drink in hand.
Irish Times
A serendipitously timed, impeccably researched and utterly intriguing historical mystery that lays bare the societal fractures caused in Ireland's fight for freedom.
Irish Independent
Excellent murder mystery/ghost story set during the Irish war of independence and as usual with W.C. Ryan, beautifully written.
Liz Nugent
A beautifully taut and evocative thriller.
Sarah Hilary

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