THE DEVIL’S RELICS: An Emer Harte Mystery

by Martin Malone

Emer Harte's career path is shaped early in life when she discovers the remains of her best friend’s mother, who had been missing for months. After serving with the Irish civic police, she transitions to the Irish army and becomes a military police officer.

In 2010, while stationed in South Lebanon, Emer is assigned to investigate the mysterious disappearances of two Irish UN peacekeepers who went missing while on leave with their unit’s touring party in Israel. When one of the missing soldiers is found in a hospital with life-altering injuries, she remains evasive and reluctant to speak.

Emer’s investigation uncovers a long-established smuggling ring, and matters take a darker turn when a highly valuable and much-coveted Chaldean antiquity from Ur, in southern Iraq, vanishes. Meanwhile, the second missing soldier remains unaccounted for.

As she delves deeper, Emer is drawn into a dangerous web of blackmail, threats, ambushes, and double-crosses. Her pursuit of the truth leads her to Avi Cohen, a high-ranking Israeli police officer, whose motives remain unclear. The case spirals into a series of escalating investigations, each revealing more questions than answers. With the missing soldier’s life hanging in the balance—and her own safety at risk—Emer must navigate a world where silence is deadly.

On the coastal road to Beirut, gunfire erupts, and a life is lost. As the mystery unfolds, Emer finally comes face to face with the soldier’s kidnapper, discovers the fate of the stolen relic, and receives a chilling warning from Cohen—a veiled threat of blackmail that could change everything.

299 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 25, 2025

About the author

There is more than one author with this name

Martin Malone is an Irish short story writer and novelist.
Prior to his writing career, Malone served as a military policeman in the Irish Defence Forces, with postings in Lebanon and Iraq. His memoir The Lebanon Diaries: An Irish Soldier's Story (2006) documents these experiences.
Two of his novels, After Kafra (2001) and The Broken Cedar (2003, longlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award), draw on Malone's time as a UNIFIL peacekeeper stationed along the Lebanon-Israel border.
His other novels are The Silence of the Glasshouse (2008), and Us (2000); both are set in Ireland.
Malone's short stories have won several literary awards in Ireland. His first collection, The Mango Wars and Other Stories, was published in 2009.
He has also written several plays broadcast on RTE Radio 1 Ireland.