Some houses hide their secrets. This one hid a child.
The Claddagh Ring
“Some houses hide their secrets. This one hid a child.”
“Some mornings you don't walk away from.”
About the Book
Paramedic Liam Hennessy has spent a career walking into other people's worst moments. Nothing prepared him for the house in Salthill.
A family murdered in a quiet Galway cul-de-sac. A note left on the kitchen table — and laid on it, a Claddagh ring, heart turned inward. The old sign that says you belonged to us. Then, folded into a kitchen press where the killers never thought to look, Liam finds the one they missed: a nine-year-old girl, alive and silent, with a faded brand on the back of her neck he last saw years before, on trafficked women pulled from a broken-down boat in his Naval Service days.
The ring is the one thing the killers left behind that they were never meant to. It's the single thread Detective Inspector Paul Sullivan can pull — and it runs further than anyone in Galway is ready for. Out of Ireland. Back twenty-seven years. Into a looted Soviet armoury, a Romanian crime dynasty that moves human beings like cargo, and an Interpol detective who once swore this family would be safe.
The Claddagh Ring is a debut crime novel set between Galway, Bucharest and the Black Sea — precise, atmospheric, and built on the kind of procedural detail that only comes from having actually walked into rooms like that one.
For readers of Adrian McKinty, Jo Nesbo and Dervla McTiernan.
Derek O'Rourke
About the Author
Derek O'Rourke is an Irish writer based in Canada. He spent twelve years working in emergency medical services in Ireland, followed by leadership roles in EMS management.
He served as a Naval Service Reservist with the Irish Defence Forces and has worked in private industry counter-terrorism roles globally.
The Claddagh Ring is his debut novel. A second novel is in progress.
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