Haunted Ground: A Novel

Rating:
Summary: an absorbing first novel
Review: Erin Hart's "Haunted Ground", a mystery set among the peat bogs of Ireland, will enchant you. This is a highly crafted, lyrical account, complete with Irish songs, pub evenings, local gossiping. Hart, a midwestern American, has a love for the country of her ancestors which comes through on every page. Her debut novel is rich, evocative, satisfying. Highly recommended.

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Summary: A Riveting Mystery, Filled With Celtic Lore!
Review: "Haunted Ground: A Novel" is one of the most original mystery-suspense novels I have read in a long while. Set against the background of contemporary Ireland, the complex, multilayered plot is filled with fascinating tidbits of Celtic culture, folklore, music and history. Indeed, the landscape of western Ireland permeates the plot and heightens the novel's haunting ambiance. Author Erin Hart brings her characters to life, giving them believable personas, feelings and motives. She captures beautifully the cadence of Irish speech, which gives the narrative a realistic lilt.

While cutting turf, a Galway farmer discovers the severed head of a woman in the ancient bog. Cormac Maguire, an archeologist and faculty member at the University of Dublin, is called in to investigate when the chief state pathologist determines that the grisly find appears to be centuries old, and not a recent victim. Assisting him is Irish-American archeologist and anatomy expert, Nora Gavin, who has a particular interest in bog bodies. Peat bogs preserve skin, hair, vital organs and even facial features. This particular head belonged to a young woman who had long red hair. The curious townsfolk begin to call her "cailin rua," "red colleen."

The archeologists search for clues in ancient records, folk songs, and local lore, trying to discover the story of the woman's violent death, a murder perpetrated in approximately 1660. Gradually the one investigation turns into a triple murder mystery. Maguire and Gavin are intensely involved with the ancient investigation. They also become more than curious about the recent disappearance of a local woman and her child in the same area where the head was found. The murders remind Nora of her sisters violent death. She believes that her brother-in-law is the killer, but the crime has never been solved. The weight of her sibling's death, along with the two other unsolved mysteries, sits heavily on her.

Maguire and Gavin are a wonderful pair with great chemistry, and soon sparks begin to fly. The suspicious villagers give a gothic feel to the story, as do the centuries old buildings, tower and priory. The secondary characters, with all their quirks, feuds and jealousies, are an interesting and realistic lot also.

I found myself glued to "Haunted Ground." It is a riveting read.
JANA

Rating:
Summary: gothic ambience
Review: A peat farmer discovers a severed head of a red-headed woman in a bog. Peat prevents decay so the head could have been from a grisly death from a time long past or it could be from a recent disappearance of a local woman.
When there is no clear-cut answer, archaeologist Cormac McGuire and pathologist Nora Gavin are called in to investigate. Local landowner, Hugh Osborne, whose wife and young son disappeared two years ago has Cormac and Nora staying with him at his manor house. Past and present intertwine as answers are sought for both the death of the redheaded woman and the disappearance of Mina Osborne.

Set in a small Irish village, the author's Irishness is evident in this richly atmospheric, slightly gothic-feeling mystery. The pacing of the novel was rather slow for the first half of the book and the ending was a little obvious, but overall the richly developed characterizations made this a book worth reading. HAUNTED GROUND was a good first effort by Erin Hart.

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Summary: Mystery and a touch of the Irish countryside
Review: Being a fan of all things Irish, I truly enjoyed this foray into the Irish countryside, with a bit of a mystery thrown in. The book was well written and captured the beauty and history of a small Irish village. I wouldn't call it a page turner, but it mixed in interesting characters with a subtle murder plot. It is a worthwhile read and I look forward to more novels from Ms. Hart.

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Summary: All the elements of a great history mystery.
Review: Corpses missing body parts, two mysteries centuries apart, music, romance and a genealogy that ties everything together are found in Erin Hart's first novel Haunted Ground. Set in Ireland and highlighting the mystery inherent in all history, Haunted Ground has all the elements of a great history mystery. Nora Gavin an American pathologist and Irish archeologist Cormac Maquire become involved in trying to determine the identity of a red-haired woman while at the same time trying to find the whereabouts of a local Irish woman and her child missing for nearly two years. Irelands bogs, traditional music and tumultuous history play an interregnal part in the entire story. As the story progresses Nora and Cormac's attraction to one another intensifies.

Hart writes two wonderful mysteries that have separate story lines and intersect in peoples lives, time and place. The red-haired woman's head has been severed and dumped in to a centuries preserving bog, but the woman's body is nowhere to be found. Good pathology, historical research, and a bit of luck begin to piece together a possible identity for the body-less woman. While searching for clues to the red-haird woman Gavin and Maquire search for and stumble on to clues to what happened to the missing woman and her child.

Hart has a way of allowing Gavin and Maquire to be central to the story, while exploring the thoughts and feelings of the supporting characters as well. The story lines of these characters are as enjoyable as the relationships between the main characters and the two mysteries.

Hart also has a wonderful feel for history and the pains-taking effort involved in historical research. Her characters have a feel for the pleasure a researcher gets from sifting through the everyday of history to find little details that sketch out a person or an event. If you love the mystery of the past and digging through the ordinary to find answers, Haunted Ground is a great read.


Rating:
Summary: .Great Gothic Mystery
Review: Erin Hart has launched a first rate mystery.She has crafted two tales in one and brought two mysteries to the light of day.Her knowledge of pathology and anthropology is to be applauded in her first thrilling novel.She leaves Patricia Cornwell's latest "BlowFly ", in the dust.A far superior work, that brings the old and new worlds of Ireland and it's music, singing into the reader's heart and mind.
It is hoped that she brings us again to the main character Dr. Nora Gavin, pathologist.This character is very real in her telling.
Thank you again Erin Hart for this novel, and I look forward to experiencing your master craftmenship.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting as much for the history as the plot
Review: Erin Hart's first novel opens on a typically picturesque Irish country scene--farmers cutting a peat bog for winter fuel. But the discovery of a woman's head preserved in the peat sets in motion an intricate plot that links the centuries-old mystery woman with a current case of a missing wife and child. Cormac, Macguire, an Irish archaeologist, and Nora Gavin, an Irish-American pathologist, are asked to investigate the head and later to do a pre-development archaeological survey of land in the area. They stay with the local gentry, one of whom is the chief suspect in his wife and son's unsolved disappearance and presumed murder two years earlier. I won't further summarize the plot here, except to say that the novel is populated by the standard locals--a detective unable to give up a troubling case, a gossipy shopkeeper who knows everyone's business, two unmarried farmers and their single-mother sister, the retired teacher with a passion for local history, and the troubled teenage nephew of the chief suspect and his mother. The main characters all have their emotional baggage, and several of them have the motive for murder.

In terms of the plot, I sometimes found the book slow going. Like several other reviewers, I had trouble getting into the book initially. As the story progressed, however, it became more interesting. The characters were a bit stilted and seemed more vehicles for the plot that living, breathing individuals. The plot was not the most surprising I've read, but it had its twists. The ending seemed a bit pat however.

What made the book memorable for me was the background material. By that I don't mean the "local color" aspects so much as the general feeling of a multi-layered history with which Hart imbued her story. As a country with a long history of human habitation, the remains of previous times are everywhere in Ireland, and the past still exerts its influence on the present. Ireland and things Irish have a certain stereotypically quaint image, at least for Americans. There was a certain amount of this in Hart's handling of her material, but she was able to counter with appropriate injections of harsh Irish history, modern life, and information on archaeology. All in all, I enjoyed "Haunted Ground" and am looking forward to reading her next Nora Gavin-Cormac Macguire mystery.


Rating:
Summary: More secrets from the bog
Review: Erin Hart, Haunted Ground (Scribner's, 2003)

Erin Hart's first novel, Haunted Ground, shows some of the hallmarks of a first novel, but fortunately sheds them as the pages turn, and we end up with quite a fine read here. If you picked this up and couldn't get past the first few pages, press on. Trust me on this.

The story revolves around an ensemble of characters, but the central two (who seem to be becoming a detective team, as Ms. Hart's website informs us that she is working on a second novel featuring them) are American expatriate Nora Gavin, who fled to her ancestors' home country after the murder of her sister, and Irish archaeologist Cormac Maguire. The two of them meet at the site of the discovery of a new bog body (an archeological curiosity of natural bogs, in which bodies can stay perfectly preserved for hundreds of years as long as they're not exposed to the air), but this one has a twist; it's not a body, it's only a head. As they're uncovering it, an hysterical local arrives to find out if it's the head of his wife, who went missing a couple of years before. Despite themselves, and for very different reasons, Nora and Cormac find themselves working on the two parallel mysteries of the disappearance of Mina Osborne and her son in the present day and the identity of the head found in the bog.

There is a good deal of setup, much of it slow, in the first half of the novel. (This seems to be a common thread in the novels I've been reading recently, for some odd reason.) A little trimming could probably have cut thirty to forty pages of the setup, just by rearranging sentences, and made the book more readable. Thankfully, though, once it gets past the halfway point, Haunted Ground gets more compelling, and by the time I got to the last fifty pages, I was staying up late to keep reading. Because of the differing layers of the mystery, it would have been impossible to tie everything up at once, so the ending may seem a bit drawn-out, but at the end, all of the loose ends are tied, everything is resolved to everyone's satisfaction, and the book has turned out a lot better than the first half presaged. A very good debut from a promising new author. *** 1/2

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Summary: Secrets from the Bog Haunt the Here and Now
Review: Farmers are going through their annual ritual of cutting turf in an Irish peat bog when Brendan McGann discovers the perfectly preserved head of a woman with long red hair. Could it be Hugh Osborne's wife? After all she and her son vanished two years ago. No, says the county pathologist, because peat bogs preserve bodies for almost ever, especially skin, hair and vital organs.

Archaeologist Cormac Maguire and American pathologist Nora Gavin are called in to examine the grisly remains and they develop a shared curiosity about her fate. They agree that it's not the head of Osborne's wife, Mina. During a thorough examination they make the horrifying discovery that this young woman had been decapitated, her facial expression one of total fear. Nora feels she has to learn why the woman suffered this terrible fate and Cormac gives her a status out of myth itself, when he gives her the Gaelic name Calin Rau, making her more than merely a dead girl.

Nora discovers a man's ring in the young woman's mouth. Written inside it is the inscription COF 16 [IHS] 52 AOI. She figures 1652 is probably a year and wonders if it's a wedding ring. Further research reveals that 1652 was a time of starvation, plague and rebellion against English leader Oliver Cromwell-and of Cathol O'Flaterty, who led the rebellion and who was married to a red-haired woman named Annie.

Watching from the sidelines is Detective Devaney, who had originally been assigned to the Osborne case. Could there be any connection between the two women? Could Mina and her son be buried in the bog? If so, why would anyone want to murder them? The missing woman's husband, who is the wealthiest local landowner and a descendent of one of the Cromwellian usurpers, has an alibi.

When Osborne offers Cormac and Nora the use of Bracklyn House, his stately manor, they are first surprised and then uneasy with the accommodations. Someone puts a dead crow in Nora's bed, her car is vandalized and she receives threatening phone calls. Is it any wonder she starts to feel unwelcome? Is someone trying to tell her to stop searching for the red-haired woman's identity? Or Mina's body?

Will the investigation into our red-headed colleen unearth Osborne's wife and son too? And did Hugh Osborne murder his family, as many in the village believe? Bracklyn House holds many secrets that Nora, Cormac and Detective Devaney may or may not uncover. But their persistent inquiries into these possibly intertwined cases, threatens to rip apart the small rural community, which has secrets long buried. Secrets that someone thinks should stay buried.

This is an intricate crime novel, gripping with suspense and historical detail as it twists and turns through the many layers of Ireland's turbulent history. It'll twist and turn your night away too, as it pulls you into its beautifully written pages, challenging you as it challenges Nora and Cormac, to solve the mystery of the Haunted Ground.

Rating:
Summary: Haunted...After all these months...
Review: I actually read this book last fall and it impressed me in two ways. First it delivered a structured story, a plot that didn't have holes big enough to drive a truck through. And it does what you will begin to believe won't happen, it actually concludes to a satisfying ending for BOTH mysteries that come into play.

Second, after all these months the book and certain aspects of the story still cross my mind. In fact I wouldn't have minded if there had been more indepth coverage of the anthropology and forensic side of things.

Highly recomended!