Introduction

Her passion for myth and magic leads a woman into the heart of a murderous evil. On a remote stretch of the rugged coast of Ireland, folklorist and illustrator Keira Sullivan pursues the mysterious Irish legend of an ancient Celtic stone angel. As she searches an isolated ruin, she's certain she's discovered the mythic angel, but before she can examine her find, she senses a malevolent presence...Is someone in there with her? Then the ruin collapses, trapping her. Keira's uncle, a Boston homicide detective, enlists the help of Simon Cahill to find his missing niece. Simon, an expert with Fast Rescue, a rapid response search-and-rescue organization, is trying to keep a low profile after secretly assisting the take-down of a major criminal network, but he rushes to Ireland, pulling Keira out of the rubble just as she's about to free herself. Simon isn't interested in myths or magic, nor is he surprised when Keira can't find a trace of her stone angel. He doesn't believe it exists. But the gruesome evidence of a startling act of violence convinces him that whatever she found in the ruin, the danger she faces is real. When the violence follows them to Boston [and escalates], Simon and Keira realize that the long-forgotten story that has captivated her has also aroused a killer...a calculating predator who will certainly kill again. Suspenseful and evocative, THE ANGEL is a riveting novel of dangerous myths, haunting secrets and the shattering truth concealed within them. It is Carla Neggers at her best.

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Excerpt

Chapter 9

Beara Peninsula, Southwest Ireland

8:00 p.m., IST

June 21, The Summer Solstice

Keira Sullivan climbed over a barbed-wire fence—her third fence crossing of the evening—and dropped to the soft, thick grass on the other side, its ankle height suggesting that no cows or sheep fed out here. As far as she could tell, nearly every square inch of the virtually treeless hills around her were marked for grazing. Sheep could navigate the rock outcroppings and steep terrain higher up in the mountains.

She hoisted her backpack onto one shoulder. Once again, she’d come prepared, even if it meant a heavy pack. Last night’s hike had confirmed more details in Patsy’s story and narrowed the possibilities of where the hermit monk’s hut might have been—or might yet still be. Tonight, Keira hoped either to find it or to settle on a spot that would work for the illustrations she had in mind for her book.

With plenty of light left in the long June dusk, she’d be back in her cottage, tucked into her bed, before she needed to resort to her flashlight. The open landscape helped her feel less isolated, less as if she was a little out of her mind, heading off into the Irish hills in search of evidence that an old story told to her in a South Boston kitchen wasn’t pure fiction.

She pictured Patsy McCarthy with her wisps of white hair, her bright eyes sparkling as she told the old Irish story.

“The monk, who was a kind and generous man, lived a simple life of prayer in a stone hut he’d built with his own hands by the spring in the rock-strewn hills above the harbor . . .”

Keira smiled as she took a moment to catch her breath and regain her bearings. She was still in open pasture, above a stream that had carved a dip in the upward slope of the hills. She’d left the dirt track a while back. A sharp barb had cut through her pants into her thigh on that first fence-crossing, but she’d bit back a curse of pain—not wanting to alert the bull referred to in the Beware Of Bull sign she’d seen tacked to a post. The land was owned by Eddie O’Shea’s brother Aidan, who had given her permission to go exploring. She’d passed a modern barn and his well-used farm equipment along the track, but they were out of sight now.

She made her way down the hill, the barren rocks and grass yielding to the trees and undergrowth that flourished along the banks of the stream, the ground wetter now, mushier, the air cooler. All she had to do was climb up the hill and she’d be back out in the open again.

Had her mother come out here on the summer solstice thirty years ago?

“Every year on the summer solstice, the mischief would begin anew.”

The stream was one of the distinctive landmarks in the story. The stone circle, the harbor, the position and the shape of the hills—they had all helped pinpoint the village and confirm that the story, however much of it was myth, referred to a real place.

“The monk had no help from his brothers in building his little hut by the spring. He used his own hands, carrying stones up from the village. He didn’t mind. He’d always preferred his own company. His solitary life suited him.”

Keira crept along the bank of the stream, dodging branches, pushing her way through the tangles of vines and holly, the lush vegetation creating shifting shadows and a very different mood than out in the pasture. She picked up her pace, wondering how long to give her search.

But even as she formed the thought, she stopped, half in disbelief.

She was standing at the base of the remains of what appeared to be an old hut built into the hillside, just as Patsy McCarthy had described, its gray stone visible here and there under a cloak of wild-growing ivy.

Keira skirted a large oak tree for a closer look at the ruin.

She could make out a front wall, the remnants of a chimney and doorway (the door most likely appropriated for another use decades ago). What must have been a thatched roof was gone, replaced with a canopy of vines and debris. She couldn’t estimate the structure’s age, but she could always ask Eddie O’Shea to put her in touch with someone local who might know. Colm Dermott, a respected scholar, would certainly help.

Abandoned buildings weren’t unusual in southwest Ireland, particularly hard hit by the famine years and subsequent mass emigration, but this one fired Keira’s imagination. The monk in Patsy’s story—or perhaps a monk upon whom he’d been based—could actually have lived here, in this tiny ruin on the hillside above the stream.

“Never mind that the monk was content in his isolation, his brothers thought he needed company—needed them, in fact. They had other ideas about his life.”

Keira could hear the gurgling of the stream behind her and, in the distance, sheep bleating at irregular intervals, comforting sounds for their familiarity, their normalcy. Whoever had lived out here clearly had maintained a simple existence. It didn’t have to be Patsy’s monk—for all Keira knew, Patsy’s father, or his father, could have wandered out here and decided to add the ruin to their story of the three brothers and make a good story better.

“It wasn’t just his brothers with other ideas, either. Oh, no.”

Patsy had hesitated at that point in her telling, her reluctance to admit she believed in fairies palpable.

“It was the monk who first discovered the angel, in the ashes by the fire on the evening of the spring equinox. At first, he thought his brothers had put it there. More of their mischief.”

Keira heard a rustling sound nearby and sucked in a breath as she looked around her.

Just above her on the hillside, a large black dog paused in front of a hawthorn, drooling, snarling at her.

“Easy, poochie,” she said in a low voice. She’d never been particularly good with dogs, and this was no friendly Irish sheepdog. “Easy, now.”

The dog growled, his short black hair standing on end on his upper spine.

Keira put some firmness into her tone. “You just stop. There’s no need to growl at me.”

Panting now, the dog edged down the hill toward her.

She’d prepared for everything, she thought, except mean dogs.

Mud, fallen leaves, ivy, stone and a half-dead tree partially obstructed the door’s opening, but she pushed aside a tangle of muck and greenery and slipped inside, hoping the dog wouldn’t try to follow her. She reached into her backpack for her emergency whistle. If nothing else, it might scare off the dog if need be.

She heard another growl, a sharp yip and more rustling of brush.

Then, nothing.

Assuming the dog had run off, Keira eased her backpack off her shoulder and set it on the mud floor as she surveyed her surroundings. The hut was small, with a tiny window opening high up on the far end, above a mostly intact loft, and another window opening over the doorway—the only entrance, as far as she could see. The main wooden support beam above her looked to be holding firm, but rafters had caved in on each other, fallen leaves, branches and ivy forming their own organic roof. On the wall opposite the loft stood a largely intact chimney of more gray stone.

“The monk had never seen such a thing in all his life as the stone angel. She was so beautiful, he sat by the fire and stared at her for hours.”

As Keira’s eyes adjusted to the semidarkness inside the hut, she got out her water bottle and plastic bag of snacks—a couple of energy bars, nuts, an apple. She tried to imagine the reclusive monk in Patsy’s story, going with the idea that he existed and had lived here. What would he have looked liked? What would his life on this hillside have entailed? It would have been rough, no doubt, dominated by the necessities of getting food and water and staying warm.

In some ways, Keira thought, it would have been similar to her mother’s lifestyle, as an artist, living alone in the woods in southern New Hampshire.

Patsy’s story took Keira through every twist and turn as the brothers tried to figure out how the stone angel had come to them and what it meant. They all agreed the angel was a harbinger of good fortune. The monk brother believed Saint Ita herself had sent the angel to turn him and his brothers more deeply to lives of prayer, charity and simplicity as a means of bringing them good spiritual fortune. The farmer brother believed the angel would bring the good fortune of a bountiful harvest and productive cows and sheep.

The ne’er-do-well brother, of course, had another idea altogether, believing the angel was meant to help him and his brothers turn a profit so they could open their own pub.

All three brothers were convinced the angel had Saint Ita’s gift of prophecy.

They were still arguing about their predictions three months later—on the night of the summer solstice—when fairies appeared and plucked the angel from the monk’s hearth.

Keira smiled, remembering the glee with which Patsy had told that part of the story.

The monk took the theft as a test of his faith and mettle and resolved to get the angel back. For the next three months, he chased the fairies through the hills, until, on the night of the autumnal equinox, the stone angel appeared again on his hearth.

He kept its return a secret from his brothers. When the winter solstice came and went without a visit from the fairies, the monk thought he’d won the contest of wills, that he was right in his interpretation of the meaning of the angel and all would be well.

But his brothers discovered his deception and accused him of lying and hypocrisy.

They continued arguing, but without animosity—arguing was a way of life for them. It was what they were used to; it was what they loved about each other. A good fight offered them a way to be together.

On the next summer solstice, the fairies again came for the angel.

Then on the autumn equinox, the angel reappeared on the hearth.

On it went, the monk arguing with his two brothers and chasing the fairies, the angel disappearing and reappearing on the equinox or the solstice.

In her telling of the story, Patsy had used just the right descriptive detail, the well-timed pause, the perfect tone to convey frustration, amusement, a sense of mischief. She’d teared up at the ending, when, one day, the angel simply disappeared. No one had it—not the fairies, not the brothers.

Staying close to the hut’s doorway, Keira sipped her water and let the memory of Patsy’s voice quiet her mind. She could smell the mud and the pungency of the vines and decaying leaves around her in the hut, feel the dampness, making it easy to imagine the monk’s excitement at finding a beautiful stone angel on his hearth.

It would be there . . . by the fire . . .

“Keira.”

She went still, her water bottle suspended in midair.

Had she just heard someone whisper her name?

Then came a creak, the groan of a tree being uprooted—and then the sharp scrape of rock against rock. Dirt and ivy loosened overhead, and decaying leaves and twigs fell onto the mud floor.

Keira lunged for the door but didn’t get far, as several rafters collapsed onto each other, sending dirt and debris before her. She heard stones tumbling on the chimney side of the ruin.

No time.

She had to take cover now.

She about-faced and dove under the loft, scrambling into the far corner of the hut, dropping her water bottle and rations into the mud as she covered her head with her arms.

After a few seconds, the rocks and debris stopped falling. Keira held her breath, not daring to move or utter a sound. A minute passed. Two minutes.

Nothing.

Hoping the worst was over, she lowered her arms and, still not making a sound, peered through the dust to assess her situation.

Who was out there? Who had whispered her name?

She could make out the half-crumbled fireplace and . . . something. She squinted, blinked, squinted again.

A small stone statue stood in the rubble in front of the fireplace.

An angel.

On the hearth.

Suspicious that her imagination, fueled by adrenaline, had conjured up Patsy’s mythical stone angel, Keira blinked once more, expecting it would disappear or turn out to be just ordinary rock.

But it didn’t disappear. She could see wings, a beautiful, delicately featured face and, in the angel’s arms, a small Celtic harp.

The three brothers in Patsy’s story had all heard the angel playing a harp.

Saint Ita had lived in Ireland in the sixth century, but there was no way for Keira to tell if the angel was fourteen hundred or a hundred years old—or if it had been bought off a garden-store shelf that morning and put here as a summer solstice prank. Maybe she wasn’t the only one in the area familiar with the story. At this point, she thought, anything was possible.

As she moved to get a closer look, she heard a loud snap and tucked herself into a tight ball as more of the ruin collapsed. Even with her face pressed against her knees, she could taste dirt and dust from the falling stones and mortar. If her side of the old hut gave way, she was doomed.

But she knew it wouldn’t.

It just won’t, she thought, surprised by her sense of certainty.

Keira remained in immobile until all she could hear were the gentle sounds of the stream and the breeze blowing through the trees just outside.

She didn’t know how long she waited—at least an hour—but when she was as sure as she could be that the hut had collapsed as much as it was going to, she raised her head and took in her situation.

A massive pile of stone and debris had fallen just beyond her free space under the loft, blocking her route to the door. She wouldn’t be going out the way she’d come in, but that left few options. There was no rear exit, and the tiny windows were too far up for her to reach without a ladder.

Keira picked up her water bottle and bag of snacks out of the mud, grimacing when she realized her backpack was buried somewhere in the rubble.

Even with the long Irish June days, it would be dark in a few hours.

She didn’t need more time to digest her situation. It was obvious to her.

She was trapped. view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

1.Author Carla Neggers loves travel and adventure—she hiked the Beara Peninsula in Ireland and spends a great deal of time in Boston, “her” city, both key to The Angel. How do you think those first-hand experiences improve a suspense novel like The Angel?

2. Who is your favorite character in The Angel—and why?

3. What role do you believe the stone Celtic angel plays in the story?

4. Irish, Irish-American and Celtic influences can be found throughout The Angel. How do they make the story better, more compelling, more believable?

5. Family secrets lie at the root of The Angel’s plot. Have you ever researched your family history? If so, what surprises did you find? How do you know when to tell a family secret?

6. Keira Sullivan is a folklorist, an artist and a woman with a certain wanderlust. Where does it come from, and how does it work for her or cause her problems? How is her restless spirit different from or similar to Simon’s? What are the pros and cons of spontaneity and a desire to wander?

7. In The Angel, Keira’s mother gives her a lesson about the difference between sin and evil. Have you ever thought about such a distinction? What role do you feel this concept plays in the understanding of criminal intent?

8. Although far from typical herself, Keira seems torn about her mother’s choice of lifestyle. Would you be able to remove yourself from the world as Eileen O’Reilly Sullivan did? What does Keira’s mother gain from her isolated life? What price does she pay for living alone? Is her mother’s decision to be a modern-day hermit fair to Keira?

9. In this world of small, mobile families, what is refreshing about having an uncle such as Bob O’Reilly? Is he a throwback to another time? Can you imagine one of your uncles or aunts knowing enough about your life to notice if you went missing as an adult? Who stands in for family in your life? Who is your Bob O’Reilly?

10. Do you believe in magic? In mysticism? In legends? If not, why do so many endure? And what is the key to making one work in a story like The Angel?

We hope this reading guide has enhanced your enjoyment—and understanding—of this riveting novel. Carla Neggers’s next suspense novel is Cold Pursuit, which will be available in November of this year. She has also done an extensive update of her thriller Tempting Fate, which will be reissued in paperback this August.

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