Murder in an Irish Bookshop

The Twins’ Inn looked cheery in the orange glow of the morning light. Kilbane, County Cork, Ireland, had a backin-time charm that often took visitors by surprise.

Once befuddled that anyone, let alone Padraig and Oran McCarthy, would open a bookshop here, after spending some time in Kilbane and witnessing its charm, it made perfect sense now. Kilbane may not have held the same bustle as an Irish city, but there was no doubt it had character.
Everyone was fast asleep—perhaps the argument that had broken out last night had taken its toll—and now residents were blissfully unaware of the trouble to come.

It was a powerful feeling, knowing something they did not. The kind of power a writer well knows, playing God, crafting his or her stories. A tinge of red on the horizon foretold the approach of ominous weather. It was fitting; a storm was brewing in more ways than one.
The pair of gray wolfhounds who had perched last night like statues by the office door, their regal bodies stiff, their ears alert to every sound, was nowhere to be seen. Asleep inside no doubt. But not for long. Good boys. Everything, in the space of twenty-four hours, had changed. Human beings never had enough.

They were bottomless pits of need. Insatiable.The argument played internally on an endless loop:

• You can’t do this.
• I am already doing it.
• I’ll ruin you.
• I’d like to see you try.
• Don’t push me. You. Are. No one. You. Are. Nothing.