The Anglo-Irish Murders is a tempting enough title, hinting at deadly goings on in a Big House somewhere in Ireland. Not so. What historian and crime writer Ruth Dudley Edwards serves up is a rather ridiculous romp set in an Irish castle somewhere out west. The castle, garishly done up as a luxury hotel, is the venue for an Anglo-Irish conference on cultural sensitivities, begob. Enter Baroness Jack Troutbeck, a cross between Mo Mowlam and Maggie Thatcher, who is called in to chair the conference and keep the peace between the Paddies. Except that all she wants to do is seduce Aisling, the pretty young interpreter, because of course you have to have an interpreter for the bolshie Irish speakers. For such a slight book, there's a huge cast of characters, all of them from central casting. Luckily, half the cast get murdered, but not soon enough for this reader's liking.
