A wee bit o'mystery

It's a beautiful Sunday afternoon, and I happen to have some free time while I wait for a friend to come visit, so I decided that now is a good time for some book reviews. In the last four months I've been fortunate enough to read three great mystery novels set in Ireland.

I found Haunted Ground, by American author Erin Hart, in the bargain bin at Borders. I decided to take a chance on this marked down book with an intriguing synopsis. The story begins when a young woman's severed head is found in an Irish peat bog. Archaelogist Cormac Maguire and pathologist Nora Gavin are asked to examine the remains. Peat preserves bodies very well, so part of their task is trying to figure out how old the remains are. Nora and Cormac become more emotionally attached than usual to the unfortunate woman, and Nora in particular is determined to find out who the woman was and why she was beheaded. To add to the mystery, a woman and her son who lived in the same town have been missing for many months. Are their remains also somewhere in the bog?

This was easily one of the top five books I read in 2008. I read one professional review that compared the story to a peat bog, pulling readers slowly down into the heart of the mystery. The plot was intriguing and well-executed, and I also enjoyed learning more about Irish music and the landscape of the country.

I enjoyed Haunted Ground so much that obviously I had to go out and buy the follow-up, Lake of Sorrows. A body is found in another bog. This time, evidence shows that the man was subjected to an ancient pagan sacrifice called triple death. It's pretty clear that these remains are ancient, but then the body of another man is found. He was killed the same way, but he's wearing a wrist watch. Nora and Cormac are back, but this time they're in grave danger. A female archaelogist soon dies the triple death, and another one goes missing. Now Nora and Cormac must figure out if and how the deaths are related.

I actually read a lot of this while waiting in line to vote. It was also an excellent read, but in a different way. I think what makes it different from Haunted Ground is that Nora and Cormac are in very real danger. I enjoyed everything about this book, from the suspense to Nora and Gavin's relationship to the difficult decision Nora has to make at the end. Erin Hart has a website, www.erinhart.com, and it looks like the third book in the set might come out sometime this year. I can't wait!

The third Irish mystery I read was In the Woods by Irish author Tana French. This is a hard book to sum up, so I'll just give you the synopsis from bn.com:

A 12-year-old girl is found murdered at an archaeological site at the center of a controversial highway construction project. Katy Devlin was a popular girl who had recently been accepted to the Royal Ballet School; her father is an outspoken opponent of the new roadway. But what haunts Detective Rob Ryan about this case is its location: the quiet town of Knocknaree, Ireland -- in the very woods where he used to play as a child.

Twenty years ago, a young Rob and his two best friends went into the woods, chasing each other, playing in a castle of ruins. But they didn't return to their homes at sunset. A search party was dispatched to canvas the woods, finding only a catatonic Rob clawing at a tree, his clothing ripped, his shoes filled with blood.

Detective Ryan has always guarded this secret of his past, but the recent murder forces him to reveal it to his new partner, drawing them closer together in the search for the perpetrator. Is there a connection between Rob's childhood trauma and Katy Devlin's murder? And is Detective Ryan prepared to confront the secrets that lie deep in those woods? Suspects abound in this fast-paced mystery -- a stunning debut that examines the complexities of the human mind and the cost of discovering the truth.

This book was very long, and the ending frustrated me. Despite that, it was a very intriguing read. I'd recommend it to those who accept that some mysteries may never be solved, even fictional ones. However, if you like your mystery novels to end happily, then this is most definitely not the book for you.

I've learned not to make promises about future blog topics, but I read Coraline by Neil Gaiman last weekend and it looks like the movie version comes out this Friday. If I can make it to the movie, I'll try to post on both it and the book (which was scary in a vague, disturbing way).