As they came nearer, the black-clad body came into view, lying on its side in the shallows... One cold spring morning in County Cork, two fishermen find a body floating in the Blackwater River: the mutilated corpse of a retired music teacher. His hands and feet are bound, and his neck bears the mark of a garrotting wire. The Garda want to wrap this case up before the press get hold of it. But when a second man is found murdered, the body bears all the same marks as the first. And Detective Superintendent Katie Maguire fears this case carries the hallmark of a serial murderer... “One of the most original and frightening storytellers of our time.” ―Peter James “A natural storyteller with a unique gift for turning the mundane into the terrifyingly real.” ― New York Journal of Books “One of the few true masters.” ―James Herbert Graham Masterton (born 1946, Edinburgh) is a British horror author. Originally editor of Mayfair and the British edition of Penthouse, Graham Masterton's first novel The Manitou was published in 1976 and adapted for the film in 1978 . Further works garnered critical acclaim, including a Special Edgar award by the Mystery Writers of America for Charnel House and a Silver Medal by the West Coast Review of Books for Mirror . He is also the only non-French winner of the prestigious Prix Julia Verlanger for his novel Family Portrait , an imaginative reworking of the Oscar Wilde novel The Picture of Dorian Gray . Masterton's novels often contain visceral sex and horror. In addition to his novels, Masterton has written a number of sex instruction books, including How To Drive Your Man Wild In Bed and Wild Sex for New Lovers . Visit www.grahammasterton.co.uk Broken Angels By Graham Masterton Head of Zeus Ltd Copyright © 2011 Graham Masterton All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-78185-119-7 CHAPTER 1 At first he thought it was a black plastic garbage bag that some Traveller had tossed into the river, full of dirty nappies or strangled puppies. ' Shite, ' he said, under his breath. He reeled in his line and then he started to wade through the shallows towards it, his rod tilted over his shoulder. As far as he was concerned, the Blackwater was sacred. His father had first brought him here to fish for spring salmon when he was eight years old, and he had been fishing here every year since. It was Ireland's finest river and you didn't throw your old rubbish into it. 'Denis!' called Kieran. 'Where are you off to, boy? You won't catch a cold over there, let alone a kelt!' His voice echoed across the glassy surface of the water, so that it sounded as if he were shouting in a huge concert hall. The wind blew through the trees on the opposite bank and softly applauded him. Denis didn't answer. As he approached the black plastic garbage bag it was becoming increasingly apparent that it wasn't a black plastic garbage bag at all. When he reached it, he realized that it was a man's body, dressed head to foot in black. A priest's soutane, by the look of it. 'Jesus,' he breathed, and carefully rested his rod on the riverbank. The man was lying on his side on a narrow spit of shingle, with his legs half immersed in the water. His hands appeared to be fastened behind his back and his knees and his ankles were tied together. His face was turned away, but Denis could see by his thinning silver hair that he was probably in his late fifties or early sixties. He looked bulky, but Denis remembered that when his father had died, his body had sat in his basement flat in Togher for almost a week before anybody had found him, and how immensely bloated he had become, a pale green Michelin Man. 'Kieran!' he shouted. 'Come and take a sconce at this! There's a dead fella here!' Kieran reeled in his line and came splashing through the shallows. He was red-faced, with fiery curls and freckles and close-together eyes so intensely blue that he looked almost mad. He was Denis's brother-in-law, eight years younger than Denis, and they had nothing at all in common except their devotion to salmon fishing, but as far as Denis was concerned that was perfect. Salmon fishing required intense concentration, and silence. Salmon fishing brought a man closer to God than any prayer. 'Holy Mother of God,' said Kieran, joining Denis beside the body and crossing himself. 'He's a priest, I'd say.' He paused and then he said, 'He is dead, isn't he?' 'Oh no, he's just having forty winks in the river. Of course he's dead, you eejit.' 'We'd best call the guards,' said Kieran, taking out his mobile phone. He was about to punch out 112 when he hesitated, his finger poised over the keypad. 'Hey ... they won't think that we killed him, will they?' 'Just call them,' Denis told him. 'If we 'd have done it, we wouldn't be hanging around here like a couple of tools, would we?' 'No, you're right. We'd have hopped off long since.' While Kieran called the Garda, Denis circled cautiously around the body, his waders crunch