Tag: Ruth Galloway

Review 2217: The Last Remains

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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.

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The Locked Room

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Review 2145: The Locked Room

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Just before the Covid lockdown in 2020, the attention of Harry Nelson’s team turns to an apparent suicide. Although they can’t find anything about it that points to murder, another “suicide” that is similar involves the bedroom door being locked from the outside. Harry tells his team to look at all recent suicides.

At the isolated three cottages where Ruth Galloway and her daughter Kate live, they have a new neighbor, a nurse named Zoe who seems disposed to be friendly. And speaking of the cottage, Ruth finds a photo of it in her mother’s things, which she is sorting. Ruth is surprised to find the photo, as her mother disliked the cottage. Then she realizes it is painted the wrong color and marked “Dawn 1963,” years before Ruth was born.

While Ruth is investigating the cottage’s past and Nelson’s team is looking for links between the apparent suicides of several middle-aged or older women, Covid hits and a lockdown begins.

Although several characters flagrantly break Covid restructions, this is another exciting entry in the series, featuring a new member on Harry’s team, several disappearing characters, a woman imprisoned in a locked room, a discovery about Ruth’s family, the possibility of Nelson leaving Michell, a threat to an important characters, and a true reflection of the difficulties of the lockdown.

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Review 1858: The Night Hawks

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D. I. Harry Nelson calls forensic archaeologist Ruth Galloway to a site on the coast where a body was discovered nearby by some metal detectorists. The same detectorists, a club called the Night Hawks, have also found a trove containing a skeleton.

Ruth, as the new department head, has hired her replacement, David Brown, who is already irritating her. She finds him coming along to excavate the skeleton despite herself.

Although the young man found along the coast turns out not to have drowned, and in fact, is a local ex-con, the cause of his death is not immediately apparent. Shortly thereafter, two of the Night Hawks report hearing shots at a remote farm. A young policeman is the first onto the scene, where he discovers what appears to be the murder/suicide of a scientist and his wife, Douglas and Linda Noakes. A few days later, the young policeman is dead from an apparent virus, the same as, it turns out, killed the young man found by the sea.

This novel mixes in local folklore with an intriguing mystery. Further, it seems to be moving along Ruth’s relationship with Nelson, the married father of her child, even though they don’t actually spend much time together in this one. I’m still finding this series enjoyable.

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The Lantern Men

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Review 1832: The Lantern Men

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Anthropologist Ruth Galloway has taken a job at Cambridge, and she and her daughter Kate are living with Frank, the American historian she met several books ago. She has made this move for a promotion but also to make a break from Harry Nelson, Kate’s father and her married occasional lover.

But fate pulls her back to Norfolk and the Saltmarsh, which she dearly misses. Nelson has got a conviction against Ivor March for two murders of beautiful tall blond women, but he thinks March murdered two more women whose bodies were never found. Although the two women’s bodies were found in the backyard of March’s girlfriend, Chantal Simmonds, and his DNA found on them, he has insisted he is innocent, and he has several acolytes who believe him.

Now March has told Nelson he will divulge the burial place of the other two women on the condition that Ruth perform the forensics rather than Ruth’s ex-boss Phil. Ruth agrees, and when she disinters the bodies, she finds three, not two.

The deaths seem to center around a group of people who used to live in a commune. The men called themselves the Lantern Men and went out to rescue lost women. But the legend of the Lantern Men is more sinister.

This series continues to be excellent, both in the mysteries and in the private lives of the recurring characters. Although Griffiths pulls a little bit of a fast one in the identity of one character, I didn’t hold it against her. My only regret is that when I read this book I only had one more book to read in the series until the next one came out.

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Review 1770: The Stone Circle

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Forensic archaeologist Ruth Galloway is called back out to the wooden circles on the Norfolk coast because bones have been discovered there, along with a hagstone. Ruth thinks they are quite likely those of Margaret Lacey, who went missing at the age of 12 in 1981. And so they prove to be. Ruth is also sure the bones have been moved recently from a more loamy soil.

Ruth has received a letter similar to the ones that arrived during her first case set near the stone circle. So has DCI Nelson, Ruth’s occasional lover and the father of her daughter Kate. Nelson had decided to leave his wife Michelle for Ruth when Michelle announced that she was pregnant. Nelson’s son Charlie has just been born.

One of the suspects in Margaret’s disappearance had been John Mostyn, but his crippled mother gave him an alibi. Now John lives by himself, a hoarder and a collector of stones, but Margaret’s family think he is harmless. Soon, though, he is found murdered.

The Stone Circle is another excellent mystery by Elly Griffiths. I am even more interested in Ruth’s private life, and the mystery itself is a good one.

The Dark Angel

The Chalk Pit

The Woman in Blue

Review 1727: The Dark Angel

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Here’s another review for RIP XVI!

Forensic anthropologist Ruth Galloway has been having a rough time lately. On the same day that it looked like Harry Nelson, the father of her daughter Kate, might split up with his wife Michelle for her, Michelle told him she was pregnant. Ruth’s mother died shortly thereafter. Now, after Detective Tim Heathfield sees her at a colleague’s wedding, he confesses to her that he is in love with Michelle and her baby might be his.

So, when she gets a call from colleague Angelo Morelli asking her to come look at some bones in Italy, she decides to go there for vacation. Angelo will put her and Kate up in an apartment in Castello degli Angeli, and her friend Shona decides to come along with her young son.

Ruth finds that Angelo’s request is mostly a ploy to get the producers of a television show he hosts interested again in his dig. However, she finds the atmosphere of the little medieval town strange, still full of enmities dating back to World War II.

For his part, Nelson is mildly concerned about the release from prison of Micky Webb, a man who paid to have his wife and children burned to death in their house. Nelson has seen Webb lurking in his neighborhood, but when he confronts him, Webb claims to be following a program that requires him to beg forgiveness of those he has wronged. He says he came to do that with Nelson but didn’t have the courage to knock. Soon, however, Nelson’s attention to this problem shifts when he learns there has been an earthquake in Italy where Ruth and Kate are staying. He and Cathbad jump on a plane for Italy.

In this novel, the emotional dynamics seemed almost more important than the mystery. However, I continue to find these characters interesting and enjoyed this installment in the series.

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Review 1683: The Chalk Pit

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Forensic anthropologist Ruth Galloway is asked to look at some human bones that were discovered in old chalk mining tunnels below Norwich. Although at first glance she believes they may be medieval, they also show signs of having been boiled. Tests show them to be more modern, perhaps 10 years old or less.

Around the same time, a homeless man named Eddie visits DCI Harry Nelson because he is worried about his friend Babs, who has not been around for two weeks. As the team asks around for Babs, Judy talks to another homeless man named Bilbo, who says Babs may have gone underground. Within a day Eddie is found stabbed to death in front of the police station and Bilbo has disappeared.

The team’s attention is taken away from these events by the disappearance of Sam Foster-Jones, a suburban housewife who vanished from her home after someone came to the door, leaving her four small children alone. Nelson has a feeling that this disappearance is related to that of Babs and the deaths of Eddie and Bilbo.

This series, always entertaining, has improved steadily, especially in regard to the difficulty of guessing the solution. Ruth remains a likable character, and I still enjoy all the secondary characters in the series.

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Review 1663: The Woman in Blue

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Elly Griffiths is getting much better at fooling me than she was in the first few Ruth Galloway books, so that is all to the good.

Ruth’s friend Cathbad is house- and cat-sitting in Walsingham when the cat gets out one night and runs into the cemetery. There, Cathbad sees a young blond woman wearing a blue cloak. He is about to offer help when the cat trips him up and the woman disappears. The next morning she is found strangled.

That day Ruth has an appointment to meet Hilary, an old school friend, for lunch in Walsingham. She is astonished to find that her friend has become a priest. Hilary shows her some threatening letters she’s received, apparently because she’s a female priest.

When Ruth gives DCI Nelson the letters, he seems inclined to think they might be connected to the murder. A few nights later, the women priests, who are attending a conference, go out to dinner, a dinner to which Ruth is invited. Afterwards, one of them is found strangled.

Although Ruth uncovers a clue, she is not directly involved in the solution of the murders. That’s okay, though, because Griffiths has created an ensemble cast of strong characters. If Ruth isn’t out there sleuthing in every book, Griffiths gets around the problem of the unlikelihood of an amateur sleuth being involved in so many murders. The Ruth Galloway series continues to be interesting and engaging.

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Review 1639: The Ghost Fields

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Detective Harry Nelson calls forensic archaeologist Ruth Galloway when a bulldozer at a housing development digs up an American World War II airplane. In the plane is a dead man. Ruth is fairly sure the body was moved there, because its state indicates it was buried in different soil. Oh, and the man was shot in the head.

The American Air Force identifies the body through dental records as Fred Blackstock. The problem with that is that Fred was reported missing from a flight over the channel, in a different plane.

The investigative team finds that Fred’s brother George is still alive, although slightly dotty. His other brother, Lewis, returned from a Japanese prison camp with PTSD and eventually disappeared and is presumed dead. George lives in a desolate family mansion with his son George and George’s wife Sally. Their grown children are Chaz, a pig farmer, and Cass, an actress.

Ruth hears that her friend Frank, a TV historian, will be returning to the U. K. to film a show about Fred. Her feelings are mixed because they haven’t been in touch for a while.

A memorial service for Fred brings his daughter Nell and her family from the United States. During the reception, Ruth finds a likely disturbed area with the right soil in the family pet cemetery and believes it may be Fred’s original burial place. Ruth and another guest also spot a mysterious stranger on the grounds of the house.

I had some inklings about some of the threads of this mystery but ultimately did not guess the truth. It remains another perplexing mystery and thriller by Griffiths and satisfactorily advances the course of Ruth’s private life. My only fear about the series is that Griffiths seems to be advancing it at about two years in the characters’ lives per year in real life, which could result in a premature end of the series because of Ruth’s old age.

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Review 1619: The Outcast Dead

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Elly Griffiths has always been good with characterization, but her mysteries are getting harder to solve, too. So, all is good with the series so far.

Forensic archaeologist Ruth Galloway is working on a TV series after her discovery during the excavation of castle grounds of a skeleton that may belong to “Mother Hook,” a Victorian childminder who was famously executed for murdering the children in her care. The show’s historian, Frank Barker, believes, however, that Jemima Green may have actually been innocent.

For Inspector Nelson’s part, he and his team are investigating the death of Liz Donaldson’s baby son. Her two other sons died as babies, but the deaths were found to be from natural causes. Something feels off about this one, though, and the forensics team finds indications of smothering.

The Donaldson case isn’t going very well when the baby of another couple disappears. This time, the police find a note saying that the baby is with the Childminder. Then another child disappears.

This time, I figured this one out about the time that one of the detectives did. Griffiths’ novels are always atmospheric and entertaining, and I continue to be interested in the characters.

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