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The Business of Blood, an all-new intriguing historical mystery from USA Today bestselling author Kerrigan Byrne, is available now!

DESCRIPTION:

London, 1890. Blood and death are Fiona Mahoney’s trade, and business, as they say, is booming.

Dying is the only thing people do with any regularity, and Fiona makes her indecorous living cleaning up after the corpses are carted away. Her childhood best friend, Mary, was the last known victim of Jack the Ripper. It’s been two years since Fiona scrubbed Mary’s blood from the floorboards, and London is no longer buzzing about the Ripper, but Fiona hasn’t forgotten. She hasn’t stopped searching for Jack.

When she’s called to a murder in the middle of the night, Fiona finds a victim mutilated in an eerily similar fashion to those of the Ripper, and only a few doors down from Mary’s old home. The relentless and irritatingly handsome Inspector Grayson Croft warns her away from the case. She might have listened, if she hadn’t found a clue in the blood. A clue that will lead her down a path from which there is no return.

As a killer cuts a devastating swath through London, a letter written in blood arrives at her door, and it is only then that Fiona realizes just how perilous her endeavor is. For she has drawn the attention of an obsessive evil, and is no longer the hunter, but the prey.

Fiona Mahoney is in the business of blood. But she’s not the only one.

With intriguing twists, blood-chilling discoveries, and dazzling prose, USA Today Bestselling author Kerrigan Byrne shows that a woman’s work is never done, even when is sleuthing out a serial killer.

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Title:   The Business of Blood
Author:  Kerrigan Byrne
Series:  In the Business of Blood #1
Genre:   Historical Mystery
Publisher:  Ardent Publishing
Format:  Kindle ARC
No. of Pages:   309
Date of Publication:  October 20, 2019
My Rating:  5 Stars

MY THOUGHTS:

Fiona Mahoney is what is now referred to as a forensic cleaner. She cleans up after crime scenes. No matter how gruesome. No matter how bloody. That is why this book is so named, The Business of Blood. Tragically, the more murders that take place, the busier Fiona is.

A man has been brutally murdered . While Fiona is on the scene she quickly notices that the current victtim's body was left in such a way to instantly make her think of a gruesome series of murders, committed by none other than Jack the Ripper, the elusive killer that had disappeared from Whitechapel, where Fiona lives and works.

Accompanied by Aidan Fitzpatrick, her first love, and a man who has become a priest, they lock eyes. Fiona says to him, “You don’t think it was…" The Scotland Yard Inspector on scene, Croft, tries to shut down this line of thinking immediately. 

Seeing the macabre evidence of his murder brings to mind Fiona's former friend, Mary Kelly, a victim of Jack the Ripper. She firmly believes he is back. Heartbroken for the loss of her friend. Heartbroken for the opportunity that was missed to marry Aidan, heartbroken for even more reasons. This all parlays into Fiona‘s determination to go beyond her skills as someone who has a rather expert technique of removing blood, to finding The Ripper once and for all.

This works in her favor, especially because Fiona has a gift of or a scale when it comes to solving crimes. She sees things that others may not see a tensor things out making her what we often called an amateur sleuth. Despite the inspector's insistence, Fiona gets the chance to start investigation almost immediately. With another murder happening almost immediately, more questions arise. Another suspected killer comes into Fiona's mind. Despite the inherent danger facing her, Fiona spends time with the man. 

What a fast-moving, chilling and rather gruesome story. As if the entire thought of someone chasing and coming all-too-close to Jack the Ripper frightened me to death, I devoured this book. What is more, is the shocking conclusion. I could have been knocked over with a feather! Kerrigan Byrne really threw me for a loop. However am I going to wait for the next installment in this series?

I have read a couple of other books by this delightful author before, and they were historical romances. Little did I know when I picked up this book that I would be reading something of a different sort altogether. Something so well-written, so thorough, that I am more than eager for anything else she has to offer.

This series continues in 2020 with A Treacherous Trade, and in 2021 with A Vocation of Violence.

Many thanks to Kerrigan Byrne for this ARC for review. This is my honest opinion.

Please enjoy the following excerpt:

Aidan stood behind me for a moment, motionless and silent. I could hear every word ever spoken and unspoken between us spilling onto the ground at my back. “I understand what the years have done to you, Fiona. I know all the reasons you do what you do.” The pity in his voice summoned a scream from deep, deep in my soul, and I swallowed three times to keep it from escaping. “I appreciate that you have to be cold sometimes. But have a care this profession of yours doesn’t make you heartless.” Heartless. Struck by an idea, I frantically searched until I found Frank Sawyer’s heart in the center of the basin. An unceasingly strong muscle upon which one’s entire existence depended. I counted four chambers. Four valves. I stared hard, unblinking in the wan light until Aidan’s retreating footsteps plodded away. I’d never found Mary Kelly’s heart. Every single part of her had been catalogued in all its exposed and grotesque exactitude. But not her heart. The Ripper had taken that, along with her life. I searched for the palpitations to prove Aidan wrong and found them, faint and fluttering, against my rib cage. I still had a heart, even though he owned pieces of it. And yet, I’d stood over too many corpses of those I loved, each time expecting my bleeding heart to just…stop. It should, I think. When a heart was broken as many times as mine, it shouldn’t work anymore. But somehow, it still did. It kept going. And so long as it beat in its chamber, I’d search for the Ripper.

About Kerrigan

Kerrigan has done many things to pay the bills, from law enforcement to belly dance instructor. Now she’s finally able to have the career she’d decided upon at thirteen when she announced to her very skeptical family that she was going to “grow up to be a romance novelist.” Whether she’s writing about Celtic Druids, Victorian bad boys, or brash Irish FBI Agents, Kerrigan uses her borderline-obsessive passion for history, her extensive Celtic ancestry, and her love of Shakespeare in almost every story.

She lives in a little Victorian coast town on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State with her wonderful husband. When she’s not writing you can find her sailing, beach combing, kayaking, visiting wineries, breweries, and restaurants with friends, and hiking…okay…wandering aimlessly clenching bear spray in the mountains.

Connect with Kerrigan

Website: https://www.kerriganbyrne.com/

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