"The winding down of the old stories and the starting of the new arose from a death; a murder, if you will believe such wickedness."

An intriguing murder mystery set in an imaginary world.

This book is peopled by vampires, dimorphs, luchrupáns and the odd – very odd – Salmon Farsade, an orphan with the ability to read auras. Salmon becomes apprenticed to Muinbeo’s most famous nocturnal detective, the long-lived and sharp-toothed Inspector McCabe, and together they try to sniff out who killed Fen Maguire – and why.

PRAISE FOR GOOD RED HERRING

‘Maxwell is to be congratulated not just on her inventiveness but on her skill in keeping such a firm grip on the interweaving strands of her narrative, entertainingly employing in the process many of the tropes of the classic noir detective story. Much of her novel’s appeal lies in the depiction of McCabe’s relationship with apprentice sidekick Salmon as they doggedly pursue a number of trails, false and otherwise, meeting en route an extraordinarily diverse cross-section of the denizens of their other world.’ – Robert Dunbar, Inis Magazine, Children’s Books Ireland

‘Imagine a book like a Pogues concert! Chaotic, powerfully creative, wonderful, whilst utterly exasperating at times, littered with classic and classical Irish references all united in a glorious cacophony of intense delight and beauty. Well this is it! … this story is as sustaining as buttered fruit-cake with all the glory of a besieged post office. You can last out days in it.’ – The British Fantasy Society

‘This is the kind of book I absolutely love – it creates a dense world for the reader to move through, makes few if any concessions in terms of explaining itself, trusting that you’re smart enough to work it out. And most importantly, it has FOOTNOTES! Snarky, teasing, funny footnotes… I would have loved this as a teenager. In fact, the highest praise I can think of is that I can picture a teen Neil Gaiman being engrossed by this, as it has the oddest atmosphere… yet it’s never tediously whimsical or twee.’ – Karina Clifford, Goodreads

‘Good Red Herring is a very different type of detective story … Things are almost never what they seem in this intricately plotted book.’ –  Books Ireland

‘If the reader perseveres and enters into the contract Maxwell is offering them, they will be well-rewarded. This is not a fantasy book to give to someone unfamiliar with the fantasy genre. Rather, it is the book to give to the avid fantasy reader in your life, the one who is looking for a challenge.‘ – Gobblefunked

Susan Maxwell studied English and History in University College Galway before training as an archivist in Dublin. She has had short stories and poetry published in The Stinging Fly and The Three Spires. The wonderful Good Red Herring, a novel for teenagers, is her first novel.