The Unquiet Grave
I didn’t have a new story for Cormac for a long time. I think I’d put him through so much by the end of The Good Turn that most of me felt like he needed a solid break. But time passed and I wrote other books, and then I read an article about bog bodies — bodies discovered in the peat bogs of Northern Europe, thousands of years old but uncannily preserved, many of them tortured and bound in strange, ritualistic ways.
And then I thought … what if I wrote a story set in today’s Ireland where another body is found in a bog with the same injuries, and the same binding, but the body isn’t historic, it’s new. Once I started thinking about the idea I couldn’t stop. Who would murder someone in that way, and why?
I understood straight away that this was the perfect story for Cormac, who had already started to knock on the door at the back of my brain, clearly ready to go back to work. Writing Cormac is always such a joy, because he feels like home, but writing this book brought me back to other old favourites too (Peter and Emma, of course!) and some new characters; Cecelia MacNair, a beautiful young artist, and Carl Rigney, an utter, utter shit (why are the shits always the most fun to write?)
I loved writing this book. I did what I always do, which is to mostly have fun, but also to cry when I needed to, and to swear and throw things from time to time. I hope that reading the book gives you the exact same experience. Mostly fun. A little bit of swearing. Some few tears.
(No throwing stuff though. Believe me, it gets you nowhere).
Out 30 APRIL 2025 from HarperCollins
WIN: Email for your chance to receive one of 10 advance copies. Please don’t forget to include your postal address.
THE UNQUIET GRAVE | DERVLA McTIERNAN | 9781460766828 | $34.99 | 30 APRIL 2025
The Advance Copy Giveaway is sponsored by the publisher. To feature your title in this section, contact our advertising manager.
Category: Advance copy giveaway
