White Bones (Katie Maguire, 1)

An ancient Irish mystery, and a ritualistic modern-day killer: Ireland's first female detective Katie Maguire must find the connection. The first in a mystery series from a master of horror.

One wet November morning, a field on Meagher's Farm gives up the dismembered bones of 11 women. In this part of Ireland, unmarked graves are common, but these bones date to 1915, long before the Troubles. What's more, these bones bear the marks of a meticulous executioner. These women were almost certainly skinned alive. Detective Katie Maguire is used to dead bodies. But this is wholesale butchery. Her team think these long-dead women are a waste of police time. Katie is determined to give them justice. And then a young American tourist goes missing, and her bones, carefully stripped of flesh, are discovered on the same farm. With the crimes of the past echoing in the present, Katie must solve a decades-old ritualistic murder before this terrifying killer strikes again. Previously published under the title A Terrible Beauty.