White Bones (Katie Maguire, #1)

by Graham Masterton

One wet, windswept November morning, a field on a desolate farm gives up the dismembered bones of eleven women...

Their skeletons bear the marks of a meticulous butcher. The bodies date back to 1915. All were likely skinned alive.

But then a young woman goes missing, and her remains, the bones carefully stripped and arranged in an arcane patterns, are discovered on the same farm.

With the crimes of the past echoing in the present, D.S. Katie Maguire must solve a decades-old murder steeped in ancient legend... before this terrifying killer strikes again.

• ISBN10: 178185064X
• ISBN13: 9781781850640
• Publish Date: 1 March 2013 (first published 1 January 2013)
• Publish Status: Active
• Out of Print: 3 March 2021
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Head of Zeus
• Edition: UK Airports ed
• Format: Paperback (UK Trade)
• Pages: 384
• Language: English

Reviews

[wyvernfriend]

All of the shivers I both do and don't want to find out if it's based in real magical tradition but overall it's creepy as all get out.
 
When the extension to a barn means that bodies are found, well skeletons, and all the bodies are dismembered and have dolls threaded through the leg bones. They date back to the early 20th Century. Then more remains are found, modern remains and they can't discount ritual.
 
The investigator is Detective Katie Maguire, a garda based in Cork and whose marriage is floundering and life is crumbling and things are only going to get worse.
 
Oh man, that was complicated and messy and I found it quite horrific, but I also found the attitude to the main female character was a bit un-modern, while I know it can be hard to be in charge while female this was set in this decade and it felt earlier.
 
very creepy and plausible.