Where they Lie by Claire Coughlan

 Some stories demand to be told. They keep coming back, echoing down through the decades, until they find a teller . . .

Dublin, 1943. Actress Julia Bridges disappears. She was last seen entering the house of Gloria Fitzpatrick, who is later put on trial for the murder of a woman whose abortion she facilitated. But it’s never proved that Gloria had a hand in Julia’s death—and Julia’s body has never been found. Gloria, however, is sentenced to life in an institution for the criminally insane, where she’s found dead a few years later from an apparent suicide, and the truth of what happened to Julia Bridges dies with her.

Until . . .

Dublin, 1968. Nicoletta Sarto is an ambitious junior reporter for the Irish Sentinel when the bones of Julia Bridges are discovered in the garden of a house on the outskirts of the city. Drawn into investigating the 25-year-old mystery of Julia’s disappearance and her link to the notorious Gloria Fitzpatrick, Nicoletta becomes immersed in the tangled underworld of the illegal abortion industry, stirring up long-buried secrets from her own past.

A beautifully atmospheric, timely thriller, Where They Lie uses a murder mystery as a lens to focus on the long struggle of women fighting to achieve autonomy and succeed in a man’s world.

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Where They Lie: A Novel: Coughlan, Claire: 9780063344600: Amazon.com: Books

Claire Coughlan's debut crime novel, Where They Lie, is out now with Simon & Schuster UK and from February 20th with Harper US.

Claire worked as a journalist for many years, for newspapers and magazines in Ireland. She completed an MFA in Creative Writing at University College Dublin in 2014 and subsequently received mentoring from bestselling crime novelists Tammy Cohen and Andrea Mara, through the WoMentoring scheme, and Words Ireland/Kildare County Council, respectively. She lives in County Kildare with her husband and daughter.