More of Masterton's 'DS Kate Maguire' books on way

The hardback version of the fourth book in Graham Masterton's Cork-based "Katie Maguire" series is out on 1 April 2015.

Warning: this latest instalment is gory, dark and surreal, with a sudden ending. Taken for Dead begins at a local wedding in County Cork. The celebrations are shattered when the local baker's severed head grins gruesomely from the bottom tier of his own cake. DS Katie Maguire is baffled until another local businessman goes missing in horrific circumstances.

The fifth book in the series, Blood Sisters, will revolve around the hunt for a serial killer who targets nuns. It will be published on Kindle on 1 June 2015, with paperback and hardback editions available from 8 October 2015.

Edinburgh-born Masterton, best known as a horror writer, began writing the series about the Irish detective while he was living in Cork for five years with his wife Wiescka, who has since died.

A Terrible Beauty (2002), the first in the Katie Maguire series, was republished in 2013 as White Bones, and was followed by Broken Angels (2013) and Red Light (2014).

23/03/2015 update: the author has told us that Blood Sisters is not the last in the series, as there will be "more coming in February 2016".

DS Kate Maguire is back

The eBook version has just been released of Buried, the sixth novel in Graham Masterton's "Kate Maguire" police series set in County Cork, with hardback and paperback versions available from 11 February 2016.

Beside the old Blarney woollen mill in County Cork, a worker's cottage guards its secrets. In 1921, a mother, father and their two young children disappeared from this house. 

Ninety years later, their mummified bodies are discovered under the floorboards. The gunshot wounds in each skull look like the mark of the IRA. But as Detective Superintendent Katie Maguire reopens the cold case, the flames of old rivalries flare up once more.