This is a novella by Irish Australian author Dervla McTiernan, set in Dublin, a prequel to her Cormac Reilly series. Primary school teacher Niamh Turley wakes up one morning to Garda Cormac Reilly knocking on her door asking about a missing young woman. As it turns out Niamh’s flatmate Maya has been murdered, which other than the horror of this discovery creates a practical problem of how she will pay the rent alone. There are many twists and turns as solutions present themselves and you find yourself cringing at Niamh’s choices but cheering her on through some tense moments. This is a nice introduction to Cormac Reilly but having read the series prior is not critical at all. ( )

My husband just came running up the stairs ready to wrestle a bear because I had shouted/screamed "Oh my f"%king sh£t, Noooooo" so loudly I could be heard on the street. I have never had a jump scare like that in a book! I tore my earbud out and threw it on the ground and now it is making crackling noises. That. Was. Brilliant.

The story itself was a little predictable but crikey my heart has not stopped racing! ( )

Dervla McTiernan once commented in an interview that her books begin not with ideas for plots, but with ideas for characters, and that seems evident in this book as in the other prequels to the Cormac Reilly series. This novella is an extended exploration of how the principal character, a 20-something woman named Niamh Turley, copes with an attack on her life circumstances and her spirit stemming from her own questionable decisions.

Niamh is actually extremely ordinary, which is what makes her story good reading. She is hard-working and circumspect, the antithesis of Teresa Dunn in the 1975 novel [b:Looking for Mr. Goodbar|166982|Looking for Mr. Goodbar|Judith Rossner|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1427008448l/166982._SY75_.jpg|161255], a character who came to my mind as I was listening to this. She just makes an error in judgment that ends up snowballing.

Although Cormac Reilly is present in this book, it's more in the role of a backdrop. He doesn't solve the crime, and though he is present at the climax of the story, he himself says that he would have bet on Niamh to have been able to save herself.

Although we may not see Niamh again in McTiernan's writing, there is a distinct possibility that one of the other characters could show up again, giving Reilly a second opportunity to put away a bad guy.

I picked this up as a freebie from Audible. I believe it's also available at no cost from the author if you subscribe to her newsletter. It's worth taking the trouble to do that! ( )

Like The Sisters, this book is a prequel of sorts in the Cormac Reilly series. Niamh Turley gets in a bind when she loses her (first) roomate, and Cormac Reilly is a garda on the case (in Dublin, prior to his move to Galway). This was a free audio novella for subscribers to McTiernan's newsletter (although I accessed it through audible), and well...it suffers a bit for it. The condensed mystery novella isn't really McTiernan's strength, and once you start the Cormac Reilly series, these prequels unnecessary. The Sisters (review here) does give some backstory to a character who appears in the series proper, but The Roomate has less connection. We don't really get to care enough about the extremely naive Niamh to truly empathize, also her boss (the principal of the school where she teaches) seems to be hell-bent on making her life difficult. There are some overlapping strategies with McTiernan's novella The Wrong One, so I hope not to see that particular approach again. To give it a label (it is a common move in mystery and suspense) would be to offer a spoiler, so I won't, but it seems a bit clichéd.

It does, however, deserve kudos for the good old-fashioned "babysitter and the telephone" moment, which is delivered at the right time. I hope McTiernan sticks to full-length novels for the Reilly series, because her writing is more effective when she has the time and the space to develop both plot and characters. ( )

This little story was okay. The main character was a bit slow to grasp things, but was otherwise likable. It was also a decent introduction to the protagonist of the series, who played a supporting role in this one. ( )