Mystery Author Interviews

MBTB manager Dean James interviews Erin Hart, the author of Haunted Ground (Pocket; $7.50) and Lake of Sorrows (Scribner; $24).

Dean: What sparked the idea for Haunted Ground? (For example, was there a decapitated red-haired girl?) Where did the two main characters, Nora Gavin and Cormac Maguire, come from?

Erin: The red-haired girl is real and I love to tell what little I know of her true story. While traveling in Ireland years ago, I heard a story from a friend s mother about her son-in-law Barry. He's now a well-known archaeologist, but as a small boy of about nine or ten, Barry had accompanied his father (also an archaeologist) to an excavation in one of the northwest counties of Ireland. The year was about 1955. One dark night, the father was called out to collect something two farmers had discovered while cutting turf in a bog. That something turned out to be the perfectly preserved, severed head of a beautiful red-haired girl. The farmers had brought the head into their house and kept it in a biscuit tin. It was clear that the girl had been decapitated, and her position in the bog suggested that it might have happened about 300 years previous around the time of the Cromwellian occupation of Ireland. As they drove back to Dublin with the wind howling outside, and the red-haired girl’s head in the back seat of the car, the boy’s mind was filled with fearful imaginings of ghosts and banshees.
All I could think when I heard this story was that it was the best opening I’d ever heard for a mystery so I started with the basic facts of the real story and made all the rest up! The description of the girl in the book with staring eyes, upper teeth embedded in her lower lip is exactly the way she was described to me by the boy in that story. That boy is now Ireland’s foremost specialist in Celtic archaeology, and was kind enough to set me up on visits to many of his colleagues: archaeologists, museum people, and a pathologist with a particular interest in bog remains. I can’t even express how fortunate I felt to have such expert help.
As to where Nora and Cormac came from, that’s a little more nebulous. Since the police don’t handle 300-year old murders, that kind of detective work is left to archaeologists. So it seemed natural to feature an archaeologist as a main character in a story that starts with a body in a bog. And after devising Cormac, I thought he ought to have a foil, possibly an American, perhaps someone with a strong interest in bog bodies, and that’s how Nora Gavin was born. They both seem like real people to me now, though each one was stitched together carefully over time. To keep things real, they might share a few traits with the various people I met while writing the story but their personalities and the circumstances of their lives are otherwise completely made up.

Dean: What drew you to the form of a suspense novel? Are there any particular writers who have influenced the type of novel you wanted to write?

Erin: I’ve always loved mysteries. I must have sped through every one in our public library by the age of fourteen. And I still love them, though I’m probably more selective than I used to be. As I’ve grown older, the one thing that’s become most important to me in a mystery is character. I love stories that are plausible, thoughtful, and slightly philosophical, and I like to learn something new about a place and a culture, about psychology or history or science. P. D. James is without a doubt my favorite crime novelist, for her compassion and depth of character. I also admire Dorothy Sayers, Elizabeth George, Barbara Vine, and Minette Walters, among others. I also look for inspiration to writers like Umberto Eco (The Name of the Rose) and A.S. Byatt (Possession), for the way they fashion literature, history, and philosophy – things we tend to think of as boringly academic – into such ripping good entertainment.

Dean: Irish music and folklore are important parts of the fabric of the novel. How did they influence the development of the book as you wrote?

Erin: I’ve always been interested in folklore, especially the way people just carry on doing things they don’t even realize are folk traditions. Everyone has little things they do or say that have some connection with the past, and so do my characters. It’s difficult in a place like Ireland not to be aware of the past, because it’s everywhere you go: in the pubs, out in the pastures, in all the ruined castles and cathedrals that are still standing sometimes right smack up against the local Internet café. Many of the bits of folklore I’ve embroidered into the story are from my own experience; one evening on a visit to my in-laws, I got a severe talking-to for bringing a bouquet of poppies into the house – terrible bad luck, the flower of death, etc., and of course I hadn’t a clue. My husband Paddy has also been a great source for all things folkloric, though he often doesn’t know why people believe these things, just that they do.
I’ve included a good bit of traditional music in the story, partly because it serves my theme about the ongoing relationship between past and present, but also because it’s an accurate representation of contemporary Ireland. It’s perfectly natural within Irish culture that many people who have regular jobs as schoolteachers, lorry drivers, computer programmers, publicans, policemen, and doctors are also amazing musicians.
My own taste in Irish music tends toward a leaner, more traditional sound. That’s sometimes hard to find, but I can certainly recommend lots of great music for those who might be interested in what Garrett Devaney’s fiddle or Cormac Maguire’s flute sounds like. Of course I’ll have to start by recommending the great accordion player (and my own wonderful husband) Paddy O Brien!
I hope to have some music links on my website soon, at http://www.erinhart.com.

Dean: What kind of research did you do for the book?

Erin: I drove all around Ireland, visiting historic houses, ruined monasteries, museums, and universities, interviewing archaeologists, policemen, and antiquities experts. I was fortunate enough to interview several members of the Garda Siochana (Ireland’s national police force) about police procedure. I also toured the archaeology department at University College Dublin, visited an archaeological dig in progress, and interviewed several staff members at the National Museum of Ireland, who allowed me to visit the Museum’s conservation lab where examinations are carried out on any human remains. I also interviewed Ireland’s foremost expert on bog bodies, an anatomy teacher who was able to give me all kinds of details on the specific difficulties of excavating bog remains, what kinds of tests are carried out, how bog bodies are dated, and the latest preservation techniques.
The trip was also filled with serendipitous discoveries: there really are signs along the roads in East Galway protesting the restrictions on turf-cutting. At the entrance to Clontuskert Priory in East Galway I looked across the fields to a small hill, only realizing after a few minutes that the hill I was gazing at was actually a mound that might be either an ancient burial mound or the site of an earlier fortified settlement; that detail provided me with a new scene in the story, and underscored by theme of the past being always underfoot. I was toying with the idea of making Nora a singer, thinking it might stretch my credibility too much; after all, I already had an archaeologist who played the flute, and a policeman who played the fiddle. However, by sheer coincidence, the bog body expert I interviewed turned out to be a traditional unaccompanied singer, so after meeting her, Nora’s fate was sealed: she sings.

Dean: Readers of crime fiction adore continuing characters, and Nora and Cormac are wonderful characters. Will we see them again? If not, what are you working on now?

Erin: Cormac and Nora will definitely continue. They each have a lot to resolve, including what s going to happen with their relationship, and I’m dying to see where all that goes. I’m planning at least three books in the series at this point: the second takes place in Ireland again and involves more bog bodies and ancient Celtic artifacts; the third story I have in mind takes place back in the States, when Nora goes home to continue work on her sister’s unsolved murder. We’ll see what happens after that.

MBTB store manager Dean James's review of Haunted Ground:
Farmers cutting turf in a peat bog in western Ireland make a grisly discovery: the decapitated head of a young woman with long red hair. The head is well preserved, and an Irish archaeologist, Cormac Maguire, and American pathologist, Nora Gavin, work together to discover when the head was buried in the bog. Was she buried two decades ago, or two centuries? There is another enigma; two years ago, a local landowner’s wife and son disappeared from the area without a trace. Could they too be buried in the bog? Did the landowner kill them? Many of the villagers are highly suspicious of him. Nora and Cormac, as they investigate the origin of the mysterious head in the bog, delve into the other mystery as well.
This is a superb first novel, beautifully written and richly atmospheric. I loved the two main characters, Nora and Cormac, and I’m looking forward to reading more about them in the next book. Hart is also very interested in Irish music, and that interest is part of the fabric of the book. Don’t miss this one!

ERIN HART - BIOGRAPHY
Erin Hart is a theater critic, former communications director of the Minnesota State Arts Board, and a founder of Minnesota’s Irish Music & Dance Association. A graduate of Saint Olaf College with a masters in English and creative writing from the University of Minnesota, she lives in Minneapolis with her husband, button accordion player Paddy O’Brien, with whom she frequently visits Ireland. Her short story, “Waterborne,” won the Glimmer Train Short Story Award for New Writers in 1996. Haunted Ground, her first novel, is being published simultaneously in the U.S and Canada, Britain and Ireland, and will soon be translated into German, French, Dutch, Spanish, Catalan, Italian, Portuguese, Norwegian, and Swedish. Visit her website at http://www.erinhart.com.

Interview added 04/15/2003.