Buried
Page 45
‘Is there another option?’ Katie asked her.
‘Well, yes, there is, of course, and I’m afraid that Dr O’Connell is already thinking that he won’t have any choice.’
Katie reached out towards John’s curly black hair, but didn’t touch him. She wondered if he were dreaming, and what about. Once you leave Ireland, you can never go back. Not for good. Everything you loved here will destroy you, in the end. Your memories, your friends – not to mention the music, and the rain.
‘You’re talking about amputation,’ said Katie.
Staff Nurse Abara nodded. ‘Below the knee, hopefully.’
‘Both legs?’
‘Yes.’
‘And then what? Prosthetic legs?’
‘They’re marvellous these days. Even if we do have to amputate, which we probably will, he’ll still be capable of leading a very full life.’
Katie took a deep breath. ‘Does he know this?’
‘Dr O’Connell has briefly discussed it with him, yes.’
‘And what did he say?’
‘He said that he was lucky that he survived, and that he owes his life to you, although he didn’t explain how, or why.’
‘Is that all?’
‘No. He also said that he wasn‘t afraid of the future, even if he did have to lose his legs. You saved him and he knows now that you’re always going to take care of him.’
*
Katie didn’t wait to talk to Dr O’Connell. She walked quickly back along the corridor and went down in the lift. She was shaking again, even worse than after the bomb. She kept her face turned away from the mirror so that she wouldn’t have to look at herself, as if she had been disfigured in a serious accident.
Below the knee, hopefully. He knows now that you’re always going to take care of him.
As she crossed the reception area the revolving door flashed with reflected sunlight and Kyna came in, in a loose white sweater and jeans, with a plaster across the bridge of her nose.
Katie didn’t say a word but went up to her and put her arms around her and held her tight. Several people stared at the two of them as they passed by, but Katie couldn’t see them because she was blinded with tears.
~
We hope you enjoyed this book.
The next thrilling instalment in the Katie Maguire series will be released in summer 2016
Graham Masterton’s next book, The Scarlet Widow – the first in a brand new series – is coming in January 2016
For more information, click the links below or use your device’s Go-to menu:
About Graham Masterton
About the Katie Maguire Series
Coming soon from Graham Masterton
From the Editor of this Book
An invitation from the publisher
About Buried
Five years ago, a well-to-do family from north-east Cork disappeared without trace. Now their mutilated bodies have surfaced in a nearby peat bog, perfectly preserved right down to the smallest smashed fingernail.
Katie Maguire suspects the family were victims of a blood feud between two of Cork’s most violent gangs. As she investigates, their bitter rivalry flares up once more... and this time it is Katie who is danger.
Reviews
‘One of the most original and frightening storytellers of our time.’
Peter James
‘One of the few true masters.’
James Herbert
‘Graham Masterton’s best book yet, and that’s as good as they come!’
John Farris
‘His setting is unique, his killer is gruesomely fascinating, and his storyteller is visceral and graphic.’
Booklist
‘A superlative writer.’
Philadelphia Inquirer
‘The living inheritor to the realm of Edgar Allen Poe.’
San Francisco Chronicle
‘[Masterton] moves from the familiar and credible to the fanciful and disturbing. The drama is tense, the writing superb.’
Sunday Times
‘Multifaceted and fascinating.’
Los Angeles Times
‘A mesmerizing storyteller whose fascination with the finer points of human weakness and deft touch keep the pages turning.’
Publishers Weekly
About Graham Masterton
GRAHAM MASTERTON was a bestselling horror writer for many years before he turned his talent to crime. He lived in Cork for five years, an experience that inspired the Katie Maguire series.
Find out more on Graham’s website, www.grahammasterton.co.uk or connect with him on Twitter, @GrahamMasterton
About the Katie Maguire Series
Katie Maguire was one of seven sisters born to a police Inspector in Cork, but the only sister who decided to follow her father and join An Garda Siochana. With her bright green eyes and short red hair, she looks like an Irish pixie, but she is no soft touch. To the dismay of some of her male subordinates, she rose quickly through the ranks, gaining a reputation for catching Cork’s killers, often at great personal cost. Katie spent seven years in a turbulent marriage with builder Paul Maguire, with whom she bore, and lost, a son. She is now in a long-distance relationship with Irish-American John Meagher.
1. White Bones
One wet, windswept November morning, a field on Meagher’s 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 pattern, 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.
White Bones is available here.
2. Broken Angels
As they came nearer, the black-clad body came into view, lying on its side in the shallows...
One cold spring morning in County Cork, two fishermen find a body floating in the Blackwater River: the mutilated corpse of a retired music teacher. His hands and feet are bound, and his neck bears the mark of a garrotting wire.
The Garda want to wrap this case up before the press get hold of it. But when a second man is found murdered, the body bears all the same marks as the first. And Detective Superintendent Katie Maguire fears this case carries the hallmark of a serial murderer...
Broken Angels is available here.
3. Red Light
On a bloodstained mattress, a burly man lies dead. Gunshots have shattered his face, and, where his hands used to be are two bloody stumps. A terrified girl kneels over his body. She is half-naked, starving, screaming. She has been trapped here for three days.
It doesn’t take DS Katie Maguire long to identify the murder victim. He is someone she has been trying to convict for years – a cruel and powerful pimp who terrorised the girls who worked for him. Has one of his rivals caught up with him? Or did one of his girls finally snap?
It’s Katie’s job to catch the killer. But with men like this dead, the city is safer – and so are the young women who are trafficked into Cork and forced to sell their bodies to strangers. When a second pimp is horrifically murdered, Katie must decide. Should she do her job, or follow her conscience?
Should she allow the killer to strike again?
Red Light is available here.
4. Taken For Dead
It is a sunny Saturday in county Cork, and an Irish wedding is in full swing. Drunk uncles are toasting the bride. The Ceilidh band have played for hours. No one could predict that the cutting of the cake would bring this wedding to a horrifying end.
The severed head of Micky Crounan, local baker, is grinning gruesomely up from the bottom tier of his own cake. Katie Maguire, of the Irish Garda, is baffled – until another local businessman goes missing in horrific circumstances. Soon Katie is on the trail of a debt-collecting gang ca
lling themselves The Kings of Erin. But these are very dangerous men. And they will stop at nothing to throw Katie off the trail...
Taken for Dead is available here.
5. Blood Sisters
In a nursing home on the outskirts of Cork, an elderly nun lies dead. She has been suffocated. It looks like a mercy-killing – until another sister from the same convent is found viciously murdered, floating in the Glashaboy river.
The nuns were good women, doing God’s work. Why would anyone want to kill them? But then a child’s skull is unearthed in the garden of the nuns’ convent, and DS Katie Maguire discovers a fifty year old secret that just might lead her to the killer... if the killer doesn’t find her first.
Blood Sisters is available here.
6. Buried
Five years ago, a well-to-do family from north-east Cork disappeared without trace. Now their mutilated bodies have surfaced in a nearby peat bog, perfectly preserved right down to the smallest smashed fingernail.
Katie Maguire suspects the family were victims of a blood feud between two of Cork’s most violent gangs. As she investigates, their bitter rivalry flares up once more... and this time it is Katie who is danger.
The seventh Katie Maguire book will be released in summer 2016
Coming soon from Graham Masterton
The Scarlet Widow
London, 1750
Beatrice Scarlet is the apothecary’s daughter. She can mix medicines and herbs to save the lives of her neighbours - but, try as she might, she can’t save the lives of her parents. An orphan at just sixteen, Beatrice marries a preacher and emigrates to America.
New Hampshire, 1756
In the farming community where Beatrice now lives, six pigs are found viciously slaughtered; slices of looking-glass embedded in their mouths. According to scripture, this is the work of Satan - but Beatrice Scarlet suspects the hands of men. As she closes in on the killer, she must act quickly to unmask him - or become the next victim herself...
The Scarlet Widow is available here from January 2016
From the Editor of this Book
If you enjoyed this book, you may also enjoy reading these novels recommended by the editor.
Mark Roberts – BLOOD MIST
Liverpool DCI Eve Clay hunts a Satanic killer who knows more about her past than she does. First in a gripping new series from a Dagger-shortlisted author.
Ben Cheetham – SPIDER’S WEB
Two detectives find themselves confronting three decades of perversion, corruption and murder in a case that stretches from the streets of Sheffield to the corridors of power.
Anthony J. Quinn – DISAPPEARED
Disappeared introduces Celcius Daly, a Belfast Police Inspector laden with flawed judgment and misplaced loyalties and one of 2012’s top ten crime novels.
An Invitation from the Publisher
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The story starts here.
First published in the UK in 2015 by Head of Zeus Ltd
Copyright © Graham Masterton, 2015
The moral right of Graham Masterton to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN (HB) 9781784081379
ISBN (TPB) 9781784081386
ISBN (E) 9781784081362
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