The darkest crimes leave the deepest roots
A house built on secrets
An old woman haunted by her past
A young woman fighting for her life
For Sara Keane, it was supposed to be a second chance.
A new country. A new house. A new beginning.
Then came the knock on the door.
Elderly Mary Jackson can't understand why Sara and her husband are living in her home.
She remembers the fire. She remembers the house burning down. But she also remembers the children. The children who need her. The children she must protect.
'The children will find you,' she tells Sara, because Mary knows she needs help too. As Sara becomes obsessed with what happened in that house nearly sixty years ago, and the family wiped out in one bloody night, she begins to see things. Things that can't be real.
In a story that spans six decades, the truth will not stay buried, and the ghosts of the past can never remain in the shadows . . .
With a Foreword by John Connolly.
Stuart Neville is a writer known for shining an unflinching light on his home country and its people. Ireland - north and south - in Neville's hands, is a land haunted by ghosts, both real and imagined. This collection is divided into two parts: New Monsters and Old Friends. And many of the characters from Stuart's novels, like Gerry Fegan from The Twelve, can be found haunting these pages. Childhood, innocence, guilt and redemption are all themes that are represented in Stuart's novels and in this collection, as John Connolly puts in his Foreword, 'here are monsters, both human and non-human. Here are hauntings, real or imagined. Here are old friends and older fiends.'
Stuart's pleasure in the short story is evidenced in these thirteen tales, culminating in the previously unpublished novella, 'The Traveller', which sees Jack Lennon (from The Final Silence) and his daughter Ellen McKenna, pitted against the unnamed assassin who is targeting them. This is a collection of stories covering a decade of the author's writings and, as Connolly says, is 'the work of a prodigiously talented writer'. This is Irish noir at its best.
The fallout from DCI Serena Flanagan's last case, which saw her home invaded and her husband attacked, has left her family fractured. Serena is asked to sign off the suicide of a severely disabled businessman, whose widow's close relationship with the local reverend starts to sound an alarm. But with no evidence to back her up, have Serena's instincts led her astray? Serena's determination to unlock the mystery of what happened in that house may cost her her job - and her family.
When 12-year-old Ciaran Devine confessed to murdering his foster father it sent shock waves through the nation. DCI Serena Flanagan took Ciaran's confession after days spent earning his trust. He hasn't forgotten the kindness she showed him - she hasn't left his thoughts at all.
But was there more to this case than the police uncovered? When concerns are brought to DCI Flanagan the years of lies begin to unravel, setting a deadly chain of events in motion.
Rea Carlisle has inherited a house from an uncle she never knew. It doesn't take her long to clear out the dead man's possessions, but one room remains locked. When Rea finally forces it open she discovers inside a chair, a table - and a leather-bound book. Inside its pages are locks of hair, fingernails: a catalogue of victims. Horrified, Rea turns to the only person she can think of: DI Jack Lennon.
It is snowing, she's barefoot, but Galya runs. Tricked into coming to Belfast with the offer of a good job, all she wants now is to go home. Her only hope is a man who gave her a cross on a fine chain and a phone number, telling her to call if she escapes. Now she puts herself at his mercy, knowing she has nowhere else to turn.v
