Haunted Ground FROM THE PUBLISHER
"When farmers cutting turf in a peat bog make a grisly discovery - the perfectly preserved severed head of a young woman with long red hair - Irish archaeologist Cormac Maguire and American pathologist Nora Gavin team up in a case that will open old wounds. Peat bogs prevent decay, so the decapitated young woman could have been buried for two decades, two centuries, or even much longer. Who is she? When was she killed? The extraordinary find leads to even more disturbing puzzles. The red-haired girl is clearly a case for the archaeologists, not the police. Still, her tale may have shocking ties to the present, and Cormac and Nora must use cutting-edge techniques to preserve ancient evidence." "And the red-haired girl is not the only enigma in this remote corner of Galway. Two years earlier, Mina Osborne, the local landowner's Indian-born wife, went for a walk with her young son and never returned. Did Mina simply decide to disappear, or did mother and child become lost in the treacherous bog? Could they, too, be hidden in its depths, only to be discovered centuries from now? Or did the landowner, Hugh Osborne, murder his family, as some villagers suspect?" Bracklyn House, Osborne's stately home, holds many secrets for Nora and Cormac and policeman Garrett Devaney. But time is running out. Devaney's superiors want him off the Osborne case. Now. He wants to stay and find a killer.
FROM THE CRITICS
The New York Times
Hart writes with a lovely eloquence about how character is shaped by the music, the architecture and the history of this harsh and beautiful land. — Marilyn Stasio
Publishers Weekly
Cutting turf in the peat bogs of his Ireland farm, Brendan McGann occasionally finds old oak beams, oxcarts or tubs of butter and cheese buried ages ago and forgotten. But he's hardly prepared for the gruesome discovery he makes one pleasant April morning: the perfectly preserved head of a woman. So begins Hart's debut thriller, which follows archeologist Cormac Maguire, maverick local detective Garret Devaney, and Nora Gavin, an American anatomist lecturing at Trinity College Medical School, as they investigate the farmer's grisly finding, which could date back quite far, given that peat bogs can preserve bodies for centuries. Cormac and Nora stay in the house of Hugh Osborne, the owner of a decaying manor who also happens to be the prime suspect in the unsolved disappearance of his wife and infant son two years ago. The accommodations are not quite the Ritz. Osborne's dour cousin, Lucy Osborne, is the housekeeper, and her son, 17-year-old Jeremy, who drinks too much, also lurks around the estate. Nora finds a filthy, dead crow on her bed, as well as broken glass littering her bathroom floor. What's going on in this malevolent household? In addition to a complex, multilayered plot that involves both contemporary and historical crimes, Hart's novel is rich in local color: evenings at the pub, the petty feuds and jealousies of the townspeople and the traditional music and folk culture of Ireland are evocatively rendered. Agent, Sally Wofford-Girand. 3-city author tour. (May) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
In the rural West of Ireland, two farmers cutting peat from a bog discover the severed head of a young red-haired woman and immediately summon the local police. They, however, already have their hands full investigating the disappearance of the wife and young son of the local land baron, Hugh Osborne of Bracklyn House. Because peat bogs prevent decay, it's hard to tell whether the young woman died weeks, years, or centuries ago, so Irish archaeologist Cormac Maguire and American Nora Gavin, a visiting lecturer in pathology, are called in to help. Local gossip favors Hugh Osborne as the possible murderer of his wife and child and links him romantically to young artist Una McGann. Also among the local suspects are Una's brother, Brendan, and Hugh Osborne's cousin, Lucy, and her teenage son, Jeremy. As Gavin and Maguire dig deeper, local folklore leads them to the story of a young woman who was beheaded for killing her child in the 1600s. But where's her body, and what happened to the Osbornes? Skillfully textured with lush Irish landscape, folklore, and music, this well-executed first novel weaves together Ireland's turbulent past and its rapidly emerging technological present in a wonderfully entertaining plot; it also introduces a pair of appealing amateur sleuths. Highly recommended for both fiction and mystery readers. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 1/03.]-Susan Clifford Braun, Aerospace Corp., El Segundo, CA Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
The boggy shores of Lough Berg, in the wilds of West Ireland, yield up a host of crimes, past and present, for Dubliner Cormac Maguire and Irish-American Nora Gavin. Maguire, a professor of archaeology, is accustomed to fieldwork on short notice. But when farmer Brendan McGann, who still insists on cutting turf by hand, unearths the severed head of a woman with wild red hair, perfectly preserved by the peat, Maguire hightails it to Galway, recruiting anatomy lecturer Gavin to help him examine the grisly find. In the town of Dunbeg, their professional interest soon competes with their personal baggage, since the head-over 300 years buried, Nora discovers-starts village tongues wagging over the more recent disappearance of wealthy landowner Hugh Osborne's India-born wife and their two-year-old son Christopher. And Mina Osborne's disappearance reminds Nora all too much of the murder of her sister Tr'ona, killed, Nora is convinced, by Tr'ona's husband Peter. Cormac, meanwhile, takes advantage of the dig to listen to local musicians play Galway folk tunes and to visit the Dungarven house where his mother raised him after his father abandoned them. He also stops resisting his attraction to Nora and begins to protect her, both from her growing obsession with the ca'lin rua-finding out how the red-haired girl died and how her head came to be buried in Drumcleggan Bog-and from whatever menacing stranger has telephoned threats in the night and placed a dead crow in her bed. As Nora and Cormac search for answers, the two academics are joined by a professional: Detective Garrett Devaney of the Dunbeg Garda, who courts the wrath of his superiors and tries the patience of his wife Nuala by continuingto investigate long after Mina and Christopher's disappearance has been turned over to the task force in Dublin. Spooky and compelling: Hart's debut suspenser does for Galway what Sharyn McCrumb does for Appalachia. Agent: Sally Wofford-Girand
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