Things seem to be in flux for Dr. Ruth Galloway. Her university in Norfolk has decided to close its archaeology department. Detective Harry Nelson’s wife Michelle has finally left him, and he wants Ruth and Kate to move in with him. But Ruth is reluctant to leave her cottage and doesn’t know what to do.
In a wall of a building being renovated, a skeleton is found. Ruth identifies it as modern because of a plate in its leg, and it turns out to be a woman missing for 20 years. Nelson is dismayed to learn that their friend Cathbad was present at an archaeological campout from which she disappeared all those years ago.
It is still the time of Covid. Cathbad nearly died from it and is having problems recovering. As Nelson’s team questions the former owners of the building where the skeleton was found and the participants of the campout, DC Tony Zhang is exposed to the virus and must isolate.
Nelson’s team finds that the victim, Emily Pickering, was having an affair with Leo Ballard, the archaeology professor leading the campout. He took her to the train station early Monday morning on her way home, but there were puzzling sightings of her on CCTV in other places that day.
Ruth has made a trip to Grimes Graves, ancient mines where the campout took place, and noticed she got a lot of chalk on her pants. The cloths wrapping Emily’s remains also being coated with chalk, Ruth plans to return to Grimes Graves to take soil samples. But she has a lot to deal with at the university, helping with protests initiated by David Brown, who, if the department closes, wants her to move to Uppsala with him.
This is another excellent mystery in this series, and followers may be happy to know that the inertia in the relationship between Ruth and Nelson finally gets unstuck. I won’t say in which direction.
whatmeread 
I’m glad their relationship finally comes to a conclusion, whichever way!
Well, it seems to. One other time, she made it look like it was going to, but it didn’t.
Yes, I think that’s when I gave up. I couldn’t bear the idea of Ruth drifting back into her endless longing for someone else’s husband!
Oh no, it’s the last one. No wonder she wrapped it up. That’s my favorite of hers, so I don’t know if I’ll be continuing to read the others.
I usually find I enjoy the first few books in each of her new series and then they all seem to get bogged down somehow. Thank goodness she’s prolific!
Yes, that’s what happened to me. The only one I have kept my interesting in is this one, and that was the last book!