Murder and political intrigue are front and center in Hanrahan’s third entry in his legal thriller series featuring Boston P.I. Bill Coine. A weekend getaway to Massachusetts’ Berkshire Mountains for Coine and his wife Jeanie end badly when he follows the smell of death and finds a dead body hanging from a beam in the hotel room next to his. The dead man is none other than Ted Prescott, Fairlane Township’s board of selectmen chairman. Prescott was responsible for the town’s sanctuary ordinance protecting undocumented immigrants in the community. The town’s chief of police, Tom Breshetti says it was suicide. Bill Coine, hired by Prescott’s widow, proves it was murder.

However, he is soon conflicted when the widow insists Prescott was murdered by Jonathan Tanner, the one selectman who voted against the ordinance. Tanner publicly threatened his fellow selectmen if harm should ever come to his family at the hands of an illegal immigrant. A short time later, his son was killed by an undocumented immigrant during a botched carjacking. However, Coine insists Prescott’s murder was not for political revenge and allies himself with Tanner to help prove his innocence. His success depends on solving a complex puzzle. Will he locate the real killer in time to save Tanner? Exciting twists and turns and the obligatory surprise ending await the reader. Hanrahan’s third novel, a fascinating sequel to “Downsized."

Hanrahan’s third novel, a fascinating sequel to Downsized — with extreme prejudice, underscored his reputation as a gifted storyteller. A street smart Brooklyn native, a former captain in a combat branch of the US Army and an experienced Boston Trial Attorney, Hanrahan puts this rich background to good use in Sanctuary — A Catalyst for Murder. Although plot and cast are strictly a product of his imagination, Hanrahan breathes life into his characters. Sanctuary is a must read for the true lover of the suspense/legal thriller genre.