Lake of Sorrows

After I read "Haunted Ground" and found out that Ms. Hart was writing a follow up, I couldn't wait to "dig" into her second effort. And I wasn't disappointed at all! Her first book was no fluke, no beginner's luck. Story line, plot, characterization, and place description are as tight in this book as in her first. My only request for future Hart novels is to bring the setting out of the gloomy boglands. I much more enjoyed following her through forests and beautiful vistas of Ireland in "Haunted Ground." But, whe was still true to her surroundings. Keep going, Erin! Take me back to Ireland again with a great read!

Ms. Hart's second novel after "Haunted Ground" shows us that this eloquent, beautiful writer only gets better with each new work!!!Her characters are well developed, fascinating, and not what suspense novel readers are used to seeing in modern fiction. Her characters are well connected to this Irish community and we see motives for murder in many of them. This is totally refreshing!! No sterotypical plot or characters. Compulsive and literate!!!

Lake of Sorrows is Erin Hart's second book that features Nora Gavin, a pathologist that has knack for getting mixed up in murders and tangled scenarios that make for some great reading. I must admit that I had no idea there was a book written prior to reading this, yet it I didn't feel it kept me from enjoying this fully as the story was strong on its own. One of the best parts of this book is the rich and detailed description of Ireland, focusing on the Loughnabrone Bog as a place of mystery and gruesome hidden secrets that sank as fast as the muddy sand that swallowed up jewels and people with no one to hear the last screams. The foggy and misty feel of the country side with it's wet bogs, forests and magnificent pastures swept through my head as the writer described everything so eloquently with much passion. This tale of murder, lost treasure, love triangles and archaeological excavations that educated us about the Iron Age Celtic culture, as that history wasn't written, only recorded on jewels and weapons found in the sunken bog along with bodies of sacrificial origin, murmured to be called a Triple Death from Britain and the Continent, found from Gallagh, Galway and Lounghabrone. Nora Gavin has suffered through an event from the previous story, and was out in Loughnabrone at an archaeological dig in the bog of a man believed to been sacrificed over a hundred years ago. She slowly discovers secrets and hidden relationships between teams of people from the University and other expedicitonal teams that end up adding bodies into the watery bogs. The story has many interesting characters, some good and some who hate and cheat and even murder. I was extremely interested in watching their separate stories cross paths with each other, like a piece of fabric woven with tales of love and hate and what happened when Nora forced by events around her must get to the bottom of hidden treasures and missing people in order to free her boyfriend who seems involved and to save her own life as she stumbles in the path of danger. This was not only a murder mystery but a tale of love and relationships, about people who only start caring for someone after they have been murdered, because when they were alive no one cared and for life's lessons that my eyes read through hungrily. I don't know how people could have found it boring for I was pulled into the story until I finally read it to the end, and i would try to go to bed but would pick the book up, read it then try and go to sleep only to do it two more times. I liked and cared for Nora and Cormack, her boyfriend, I detested Ursula Downes who was sneaky and out after every man, especially the taken ones, and for Ward, the detective, Charlie Brazil a bog worker with secrets and hidden containers with clues to the tale and the many minor and major characters who made it for a head spinning tale of intrigue, as guessing who did it was hard, so many people have done something very interesting that kept adding

The centuries old mystery of the Irish midland peat bogs are bought to life in this engaging thriller from author, Erin Hart. The bogs are full of secrets. To ancient people they were a strange liminal region, half water and half earth - the center of the world. A holy place, a burial ground, a safe for stowing treasure, and a region of spirits. Recently the bogs have been relinquished to feed the ever-growing hunger for electric power, the men have gone to work on them devising more efficient ways to harvest peat. As the turf is cut and dried, to be burnt as a fuel, there is occasionally a find that enthuses archaeologists. When Dublin archaeologist Cormac Maguire and anatomy lecturer Nora Gavin return to the wilds of the Irish countryside, they discover one such find. Two bodies are excavated: one an Iron Age bog body, revealed to have been in the bog for thousands of years, the other is the body of a man discovered to have a modern wristwatch on his arm. But both show signs they were victims of ritualized killings, or murders that looked like ritual killings. This is an area that is soaked in ancient myths and age-old recriminations, and police detective Liam Ward, who knows the history of the area, is perplexed that the bodies were slain in such a manner. With an estimated date of death to be only twenty or so years ago, Ward, helped by Nora and Cormac, must work to discover the true identity of the modern man who was buried beneath the bog. The newly discovered body is identified as Danny Brazil, a champion hurler who was believed to have emigrated to Australia twenty-five years ago. Before he disappeared, Danny and his brother Dominic were awarded a substantial reward for their discovery of the Loughnabrone hoard, a priceless collection of gold. The hoard contained the Broighter collar, a gold neck ring from the first century BC, an unbelievable find that was also considered invaluable. Soon after, however, the hoard containing the collar inexplicably vanished. In unraveling the fate of Danny and the mysterious Broighter collar, Hart has assembled an eclectic and varied collection of suspects: There's Dominic's son, Charlie, a shy, reclusive loner who is quietly obsessed with bee keeping. Is Danny a misfit, or just one of those unfortunate people whose odd behaviour naturally draws suspicion? Teresa Brazil, Dominic's wife, hides secrets of the past, and hates living amongst "a landscape of soaking ground and dark drains slowly bleeding life away." Does a young mute young woman named Brona, who once witnessed her sister's suicide, know something more than she's letting on?And what of Ursula Downes, fellow archaeologist and rapacious vamp? Ursula has recently been raising eyebrows because of her clandestine, kinky affair with Owen Cadogan, the bitter, misogynistic, and very married bog manager. There's also Rachel Briscoe, and an enigmatic young student who hates Ursula with a passion and spies on her at night. As the story unfolds,

This book provides a very enjoyable read, not compelling or tense and not too much distracting detail. It is what I consider lighter type mystery. I would consider reading more by this author.