Ah, Katie Maguire, I'm surely gettin' ta know ye...

Let's see how many of the typical story elements show up in this one, shall we?

1 - Katie is either moving toward John or away from him...or both. Check.
2 - A good cop gets killed. Check.
3 - Katie does something that pisses off her superior officer. Check.
4 - An awkward sex scene that goes on too long. Check.
5 - There's a long-standing cop on the force who's somehow in league with the bad guys. Check.
6 - A villain shows up at Katie's home. Check.
7 - Katie walks her dog. Check.
8 - Katie disregards any longstanding or unresolved relationships to have indiscriminate sex. Check.
9 - The only ones Katie trusts are asked to help her, to their own peril. Check.
10 - The villains have unreasonably strong beliefs in either religion or some sort of historical aspect of Ireland. Check.
11 - In the end, Katie solves the case, but it does nothing to help her standing, station, or career. Check.

Yup. This one's got it all.

I'll try one more, but these are getting a little old, and the gruesomeness is beginning to feel like it's simply grue for grue's sake. ( )

Buried – Another Katie McGuire Masterclass

The Katie McGuire series is rapidly becoming one of the best police procedural thriller series around today. Graham Masterton has a real ear for the genuine Irish burr which he has always used to full effect throughout the previous outing of Katie McGuire and continues with this one.

Detective Superintendent Katie McGuire is feisty principle character, a red headed dynamo who is not afraid to take on corruption, bullying and downright lies – and that is just in the Cork Garda station. Once again Masterton gives us a masterclass in thriller writing, with plenty of twists and turns and plenty of guts. It is little wonder that he is one of the most exciting thriller writers of the moment, who writes with style, who is always original and simply a brilliant story teller.

In Blarney, outside of Cork, a couple of workers on renovating an old millworkers cottage, when they discover a secret that it has been hiding for over 90 years. A family are found under the floorboards and looking by the bullet holes they have been executed, but by whom and when are the questions Katie McGuire has to ask. At the same time, she needs to tread very carefully she does not want to stir up a hornet’s nest of historic hatreds.

At the same time, she is forced to confront a bully criminal who is involved with Irish terrorism, and who is suspected of murdering or knowing who did, of one of her detectives. At the same time, she is also investigating his cigarette smuggling and Bobby Quilty is not a very happy criminal. Even though everyone in Cork knows Quilty is a criminal he is able to walk out of court every time for a variety of reasons, most of them crooked.

Throughout the investigation she is aware that Quilty is always one step ahead of the Guards and she knows she will have to find the mole who is helping him. It is when Quilty takes her ex-boyfriend, John, hostage does she understand the depths he will go to protect himself and his enterprises and helps to drive her on even more.

As her investigations continue she knows that whatever she does she needs to find the mole at the station, take out Bobby Quilty and rescue her John. All this throws up some of the motives and actions that she takes and would probably be illegal if uncovered, but that is artistic licence for you.

With unpredictable twists and turns, Buried is a great crime thriller that is a pacey read that will take us on a course of memory and the ability to forgive and forget. Another great crime thriller from a brilliant storyteller, who always delivers on every level of excitement and intrigue. ( )