Book #7/2019 The Ghost Fields

The Ghost Fields: The Dr Ruth Galloway Mysteries 7 by Elly Griffiths
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I love the Ruth Galloway series by Elly Griffiths. The Ghost Fields is number 7 and it really is as well to read them in order as there are threads that run through the series that lock your interest and enthusiasm for the characters.

Dr Ruth Galloway is a professor of forensic archaeology at the University of North Norfolk. She likes cats (an endearing trait for me!), Bruce Springsteen, bones and books. She does not like organised religion. She has a now five-year-old daughter, Kate, fathered by DCI Harry Nelson after a brief extra-marital affair. Nelson is married to Michelle. He leads the Serious Crimes Unit in Norfolk. Michael Malone is a lovable character, also know as Cathbad. Born in Ireland and brought up as a catholic he now thinks of himself as a druid and shaman. DS David Clough (Cloughie) is Nelson's bagman, born in Norfolk - a tough, dedicated officer who dislikes political correctness and graduate police officers. He likes food, football, beer - and his job. And then there is DS Judy Johnson who now co-habits with Cathbad and has just given birth to a daughter. I have followed their lives since book #1 with great fondness.

In a blazing heatwave in Norfolk a construction crew unearth a World War Two plane. The body inside isn't the pilot. A television company discovers bones on their latest shoot on a pig farm. They're human bones... One local family, the Blackstocks, links the two grisly discoveries and Ruth must solve the mystery of the ghost fields. With an inevitability she finds herself in harms way in a finish that has the pulse racing - a fabulous page-turner - that left me quite breathless come the end.

Hats off to Elly Griffiths. You have done it again!



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Book #19 The Outcast Dead

The Outcast Dead: The Dr Ruth Galloway Mysteries 6 by Elly Griffiths
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The best of six, so far. Well, that is my opinion! I love this series. I like the characters. The vulnerable Dr. Ruth Galloway and her daughter Kate, the old-fashioned copper DCI Harry Nelson, his bagman DS David Clough, a tough, dedicated officer and Cathbad (Michael Malone), raised a Catholic and now a druid and self-professed shaman. The series knits seamlessly together; elements of forensic archeology, myth, the supernatural and superstition. In The Outcast Dead child abduction is a major element in the plot, which adds to the tension and results in a breathless race against time.

Ruth has excavated a body from the grounds of Norwich Castle, thought to be that of Jemima Green, called Mother Hook for her claw-like hand. Jemima was hanged for the murders of five children. But, was she guilty? Frank, an American historian, thinks otherwise. Present as part of a US film crew, to create a documentary.

Harry Nelson is investigating the case of three infants found dead, one after the other and he is convinced that their mother is responsible. A clever interweaving of story-lines here.

And then a child goes missing.... Is there a possible link to the long-dead Mother Hook?

A rich, dark and fast-moving plot. Thank you Elly Griffiths for another cracking read!

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Book #18 Dying Fall

A Dying Fall: The Dr Ruth Galloway Mysteries 5 by Elly Griffiths
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A change of location in Ruth Galloway number 5 when her long-time friend Dan Golding is killed in a house fire - in Lancashire. Is it a coincidence that Ruth receives a letter from Dan, written the day before he died? He had made a ground-breaking discovery and said he was scared. Ruth is compelled to head north to investigate further. So does DCI Harry Nelson who takes his wife on holiday to Blackpool. Ruth takes her daughter Kate with her and faces untold risks in another well paced mystery. I enjoy the continuity of this series, which includes her friend and Kate's godfather Cathbad (Michael Malone) - a druid and self-professed shaman. The eerie North Norfolk coast is replaced with the brooding landscape of the Pendle Forest and the windswept Lancashire coast....

So, five down, five to go....

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Book #77 The House at Sea's End

The House at Sea's End: The Dr Ruth Galloway Mysteries 3 by Elly Griffiths
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This really is an excellent series; Elly Griffiths has pulled off another gripping mystery featuring her protagonist Dr. Ruth Galloway and the impatient and quick-tempered DCI Harry Nelson. Apart from the intriguing plot there are threads running through this series (this is #3) that are tantalising; but I cannot mention them for fear of spoiling the ongoing drama for anyone who has not yet embarked on this journey set on the eerie landscape of the Norfolk coast.

Bones unearthed at the foot of a north Norfolk cliff; the skeletons might have lain there since the Second World War - has a dreadful crime been concealed all these years? As events unfurl it becomes evident that someone wants the truth of the past to stay buried when a body washes up on the beach. Does the owner of Sea's End House know something, or a member of his family?

The characters already seem like old friends: Michelle Nelson, wife of Harry and a dedicated wife and mother; Michael Malone (aka Cathbad), born in Ireland, raised as a Catholic and now thinks of himself as a Druid and shaman; Shona Maclean, one of Ruth's closest friends and a lecturer in English Literature and Phil Trent, Ruth's head of department at the University of North Norfolk.

The ending once again is unbearably tense and that last, short paragraph - another cliffhanger - a real teaser! Guaranteed to make you read on in the series. I am waiting for numbers 4, 5 and 6 to arrive from Waterstones....

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