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White Bones by Graham Masterton (view source)
Revision as of 11:57, 17 August 2020
, 11:57, 17 August 2020no edit summary
There are many authors who wear several hats, but few who wear as many as Graham Masterton. So numerous are his writing hats that the Bibliography section of his website lists his works by genre, ranging from historical sagas, through sex instruction books, to his horror novels, of which I have long been a fan. Now, he has turned his hand to writing crime thrillers and so we have ''White Bones''.
Finding a dead body isn't an unusual occurrence for Detective Superintendent Katie Maguire of the Cork Gardai. But finding the bones of eleven bodies in a mass grave, each with marks that suggest the flesh was stripped from them and with evidence that they were used in a voodoo-like ritual is beyond the pale even by her usual standards. There is some respite when it appears that these bones have been dead bodies for more than 80 years, until another fresh set appear appears in roughly the same spot.
As if dealing with a killer isn't enough, Katie Maguire is also having domestic issues. Her husband, Paul, is mixed up in some underhand dealings and has upset some major figures in the Cork underworld, in one case by having an affair with his partner. Whilst Katie tried to avoid bringing Gardai work home with her, Paul's actions means mean that it follows her home on more than one occasion. She is under further pressure by being the first female Detective Superintendent in the Garda and by having most of the men she encounters taking quite a liking to her.
From very early in the book, you can see how Masterton's horror leanings are at work here. The reasoning behind the crime is quite dark and, given just a slight twist, this could easily have been written as a horror novel. The depictions of some of the murders are quite graphic and written with a level of detail that may turn a weaker stomach than mine. As a horror writer, Masterton is particularly good at writing the more visceral aspects of events, meaning that the reader gets a far more vivid and disturbing picture of certain things than is usual in a standard crime thriller.
There was also a little signposting which enabled me to guess the identity of the murderer a fair way from the end, which always disappoints me, as I'm not usually good at spotting such things. There were, however, a couple of decent revelations to add to this which I hadn't expected and which gave the story a couple of slightly cheeky twists which helped lessen my disappointment at seeing at least part of the ending coming.
I felt this was a pretty good novel for a writer perhaps, as yet, not entirely used to the genre. In some ways , it was fairly standard but the areas in which it did stand out were enjoyable enough to elevate it slightly above average in a very crowded genre. My hope is that future Katie Maguire novels will lose some of the clichés but retain the horror leanings and, if that occurs, they will be very good indeed.
For other crime thrillers which aren't for the squeamish, I recommend [[Still Bleeding by Steve Mosby]] or [[Gutted by Tony Black]]. You might also enjoy [[Broken Angels by Graham Masterton]].
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