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This is an absorbing first novel with an unusual Irish setting and
characters drawn in sympathetic depth. It begins with the discovery of
the severed head of a red-haired girl in a Galway peat-bog. This is no
recent killing but a crime dating back centuries. (Peat has a
remarkable capacity to preserve bodies, right down to facial
expressions.) University archaeologist Cormac Maguire and anatomical
lecturer Nora Gavin are called from Dublin to investigate the grisly
find. But Haunted Ground isn¹t a historical novel - or only in an
oblique way - and the crime which Cormac and Nora find themselves
devoting most time to is a contemporary one.
The wife and young child of a local man, Hugh Osborne, disappeared
two years earlier. Mina, a beautiful Indian artist, was a
comparatively exotic figure in the wilds of western Ireland. Suspicion
points the finger at the husband but, despite the efforts of local
policeman Garrett Devany, there is a lack of proof and the case has
gone cold. Osborne lives in a house which is like something out of
Daphne du Maurier, all spooky towers and ominous crows. The ‘family’
group inside the house is just as sinister, with Osborne’s
repressed cousin Lucy acting as housekeeper and keeping a constant
watch on her volatile son Jeremy. Equally unpredictable is the local
McGann family, two brothers and a sister, who have ties of love and
hate binding them to the Osbornes.
Erin Hart develops her story in a confident, unhurried style, giving
her characters space to breathe. Most of them have a back-story,
although I felt that the one involving Nora Gavin - her own sister has
been murdered - hung a little awkwardly in the narrative. Hart paints
an attractive picture of a remote community whose problems are
contemporary but whose roots go back through the centuries. The two
mysteries - of the head in the peat-bog and the vanished wife and
child - are subtly brought together, and altogether The Haunted
Ground is a rewarding read. Recommended.
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