New Woman
'A fascinating mix of archaeology, forensics and local folklore'
Sydney Telegraph
‘A gripping thriller'
New York Times
‘Hart writes with a lovely eloquence'
Livewire
‘Classic crime'
Livewire
‘Classic crime'
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
New York Times
‘Hart writes with a lovely eloquence'
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
York Evening Press
‘Moving and evocative. Erin Hart is described as a ‘new talent', and one I can certainly recommend.'
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Books Magazine
"An exciting story, which looks at Ireland's turbulent past."
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Books Magazine
"...it is as satisfying as a dozen oysters and a reverently poured glass of the black stuff."
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
When a red-haired girl's severed head is found in an ancient bog in southeast Galway, it may be an historical relic or the answer to a local mystery. As archaeologist Cormac Maguire and pathologist Nora Gavin investigate, they reawaken an interest in the missing Mina Osborne, who vanished - with her young son - two years ago. Why are the Osbornes of Bracklyn House so secretive? How are the strange lights in the old tower and the curious thefts from the local church connected to these riddles? Somewhere there is a killer, who wants the dead to stay buried and the missing to remain undiscovered. And as Cormac and Nora get closer to the truth, answers from the past are leading to a murder in the future...
About the Author
Erin Hart has an MA in English and Creative Writing from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. She and her husband, musician Paddy O'Brien, live in Minneapolis and frequently visit Ireland. Haunted Ground is her first novel.
Excerpted from Haunted Ground by Erin Hart. Copyright © 2003. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
With a sodden rasp, Brendan McGann’s turf spade sliced into the bank of earth below his feet. Had he known all that he’d turn up with the winter’s fuel, perhaps he would have stopped that moment, climbed up onto the bank, and filled his shed with the uniform sods of extruded turf that a person could order nowadays by the lorry-load.
But Brendan continued, loosening each sopping black brick with the square-bladed turf spade, tossing it over the bank, where it landed with a plump slap. He performed his task with a grace and facility that comes from repeating the same motion times without number. Though his father and grandfather and generations before had taken their turf from this same patch of bog, Brendan never thought of himself as carrying on an age-old tradition, any more than he considered the life cycles of all the ancient, primitive plants whose resting place he now disturbed. This annual chore was the only way he’d ever known to stave off the bitter cold that crept under his door each November.
Chilblains were the farthest thing from Brendan’s mind this unusually sun-drenched late-April morning. A steady westerly breeze swept over the bog, chasing high clouds across the watery blue of the sky, and teasing the moisture from the turf. Good drying today, his father would have said. Brendan worked in his shirtsleeves; his wool jacket, elbows permanently jointed from constant wearing, lay on the bank above his head. He paused, balancing his left arm on the handle of the upright slea´n, and, with one rolled-up sleeve, mopped the sweat from his forehead, pushing away the damp, dark hair that stuck there. The skin on his face and forearms was beginning to feel the first pleasant tightness of a sunburn. Hunger was strong upon him at the moment, but just beyond it was an equally hollow feeling of anxiety. This might be the last year he could cut turf on his own land without interference. The thought of it burned in the pit of his stomach. As he clambered up the bank to fetch the handkerchief from his coat pocket, he searched the horizon for a bicycle.
Forty yards away, his younger brother Fintan made a comic figure as he struggled against the weight of a turf-laden wheelbarrow. Fintan dumped his two dozen wet sods at the end of a long row, one of many that lent the surface of the bog the temporary texture of corduroy. For a good square mile around them, little huts of footed turf covered the landscape. Here and there on the neighbours’ allotments, large white plastic bags bulged with sods dried as hard as dung.
‘Any sign of her yet?’ Brendan shouted to his brother, who raised his shoulders in a shrug and kept at his work. The two men had been hard at it since nine, with only a short tea break mid-morning. Their sister Una was to bring them sandwiches and tea, and pitch in with footing the turf. It was cumbersome, backbreaking work, turning the sods by hand so that they dried in the sun. It would be another month before this lot could be drawn home.
Tucking his handkerchief in his back pocket, Brendan descended once more into his gravelike void, noting with a small grimace of satisfaction the angled pattern his slea´n had made down the wall of the bank. He was reaching the good black turf now, more appreciated in these parts for its long-burning density than for the fact that it had remained in this place, undisturbed and undecayed, for perhaps eight thousand years.
He set to work again, trying to drown out the rumbling in his belly by concentrating on the sound and the rhythm of cutting. He was used to hard physical labour, but there was no doubt about it, something in the bog air put a fierce hunger on a man. What might the day’s lunch be? Chicken sandwiches, or egg, or perhaps a bit of salty red bacon on a slab of brown bread. Each stroke became a wolfish bite, a slug of hot sweet tea to wash it down. One more row, he thought, heaving each successive sod with more violence, just one more row – and then his blade stopped dead.
But Brendan continued, loosening each sopping black brick with the square-bladed turf spade, tossing it over the bank, where it landed with a plump slap. He performed his task with a grace and facility that comes from repeating the same motion times without number. Though his father and grandfather and generations before had taken their turf from this same patch of bog, Brendan never thought of himself as carrying on an age-old tradition, any more than he considered the life cycles of all the ancient, primitive plants whose resting place he now disturbed. This annual chore was the only way he’d ever known to stave off the bitter cold that crept under his door each November.
Chilblains were the farthest thing from Brendan’s mind this unusually sun-drenched late-April morning. A steady westerly breeze swept over the bog, chasing high clouds across the watery blue of the sky, and teasing the moisture from the turf. Good drying today, his father would have said. Brendan worked in his shirtsleeves; his wool jacket, elbows permanently jointed from constant wearing, lay on the bank above his head. He paused, balancing his left arm on the handle of the upright slea´n, and, with one rolled-up sleeve, mopped the sweat from his forehead, pushing away the damp, dark hair that stuck there. The skin on his face and forearms was beginning to feel the first pleasant tightness of a sunburn. Hunger was strong upon him at the moment, but just beyond it was an equally hollow feeling of anxiety. This might be the last year he could cut turf on his own land without interference. The thought of it burned in the pit of his stomach. As he clambered up the bank to fetch the handkerchief from his coat pocket, he searched the horizon for a bicycle.
Forty yards away, his younger brother Fintan made a comic figure as he struggled against the weight of a turf-laden wheelbarrow. Fintan dumped his two dozen wet sods at the end of a long row, one of many that lent the surface of the bog the temporary texture of corduroy. For a good square mile around them, little huts of footed turf covered the landscape. Here and there on the neighbours’ allotments, large white plastic bags bulged with sods dried as hard as dung.
‘Any sign of her yet?’ Brendan shouted to his brother, who raised his shoulders in a shrug and kept at his work. The two men had been hard at it since nine, with only a short tea break mid-morning. Their sister Una was to bring them sandwiches and tea, and pitch in with footing the turf. It was cumbersome, backbreaking work, turning the sods by hand so that they dried in the sun. It would be another month before this lot could be drawn home.
Tucking his handkerchief in his back pocket, Brendan descended once more into his gravelike void, noting with a small grimace of satisfaction the angled pattern his slea´n had made down the wall of the bank. He was reaching the good black turf now, more appreciated in these parts for its long-burning density than for the fact that it had remained in this place, undisturbed and undecayed, for perhaps eight thousand years.
He set to work again, trying to drown out the rumbling in his belly by concentrating on the sound and the rhythm of cutting. He was used to hard physical labour, but there was no doubt about it, something in the bog air put a fierce hunger on a man. What might the day’s lunch be? Chicken sandwiches, or egg, or perhaps a bit of salty red bacon on a slab of brown bread. Each stroke became a wolfish bite, a slug of hot sweet tea to wash it down. One more row, he thought, heaving each successive sod with more violence, just one more row – and then his blade stopped dead.
