Showgrounds Shopping Centre, Clonmel

 Roger Brown has it all. He's the country's most successful headhunter. He has a beautiful wife and a magnificent house. And to maintain this lifestyle, he's also a highly accomplished art thief. At a gallery opening, his wife introduces him to Clas Greve. Not only is Greve the perfect can...didate for a position with one of Roger's high-profile clients, he is also in possession of 'The Calydonian Boar Hunt' by Rubens, one of the most sought-after paintings in the world. Roger sees his chance to be rich beyond his wildest dreams and starts planning his boldest heist yet. But soon, he runs into trouble - and this time money is the least of his worries...

Murder at New Inn in co. Tipperary

On a wet November morning in 1940 Harry Gleeson, a farm manager in his early forties, discovered the body of Moll McCarthy (also in her forties) in a field, near Marlhill, a couple of miles from the village of New Inn, Co. Tipperary. Moll McCarthy had been shot twice with a shotgun, once in the face.

The local Guards decided immediately that there was only one suspect: the man who discovered the body, Harry Gleeson. Moll, they said, had seven children by seven different men one of whom, they alleged was Gleeson. His motive for killing Moll McCarthy they said was that she was blackmailing him and threatening to expose him.

Within days of reporting the body, Harry Gleeson was arrested and, early in 1941, he was convicted (Sean MacBride was his junior counsel) of Moll McCarthy's murder.

It seemed like justice had been done except that, as everyone in New Inn knew, Gleeson had never had a relationship with Moll McCarthy, had never had a child with Moll McCarthy and, if that wasn't enough, he also had a cast iron alibi. Her killer, as was also widely known, was more than likely the father of her seventh child.

Carlo Gébler's novel is an attempt to explain, using the known facts, augmented with invented or speculative material, the motives of the man and his accomplices who killed Moll McCarthy, how the crime was committed, how the local police fabricated their case and fitted up Harry Gleeson, and why an entire community looked away as the Irish judicial system prosecuted, convicted and condemned to death an innocent man. Albert Pierrepoint (the hangman) executed Harry Gleeson in Mountjoy in April 1941.