Thanks to Paul French who included The Branchman in a Crimereads feature on Crime-writing about Galway – here’s what he said:
Finally, there’s poet and teacher Nessa O’Mahony’s The Branchman (2018), a political thriller set in Galway in 1925 and featuring Detective Officer Michael Mackey of the newly-created Special Branch. Mackey has been sent to the Garda Barracks in Ballinasloe (a town near Galway) to root out subversives. The book is rich in detail thanks to the fact that O’Mahony, who is a Dubliner rather than a Galwegian, has previously meticulously researched the life of her own grandfather Michael McCann, who was an early member of the young Irish Free State’s Garda Síochána and posted to Galway.
And here’s the link to the full article https://crimereads.com/the-crime-fiction-of-galway/?fbclid=IwAR2QXZUkywbsOQYOhRdYOb__1vWmyDTdQNEpVsOh3h5PjZ8RwEmhDulglfs