by Elly Griffiths
Overall: This is entry 14 in Griffiths’ Ruth Galloway mystery series, and I am pleased to report that I enjoyed it. As series lengthen, it can be difficult to maintain interest in familiar characters and come up with new storylines, and this book succeeds. This entry takes on the pandemic, which we revisit for the first months of uncertainty and lockdown. Ruth Galloway, professor of archaeology and sometime police expert, finds herself stuck in her house in the remote saltmarsh of Norfolk with only her tween daughter Kate and her nice but mysterious new neighbor Zoe for company. Meanwhile, Kate’s father, Nelson, and his police subordinates attempt to investigate a series of strange suicides (or are they?) by elderly women while hampered by new restrictions.
Likes: I love Ruth, she’s such a great character. A scientist who’s decisive in the field, a leader in her university, she nevertheless suffers from bouts of crippling self-doubt, questioning her choices in food, relationships, and all the things we all think about every day. She’s not a superwoman (even though she is), and I love her for it. The heart of the series, to me, is Cathbad, who takes center stage again in this book. The whole cast of characters (annoying, quirky, funny, feline, etc.) remains a great strength, as does the affection with which Griffiths writes about them and the Norfolk countryside. The mystery kept me guessing, with plenty of red herrings and distractions. The inclusion of the pandemic, with lots of small details, worked. And I LOVED it that the series now includes an appendix with info on each character’s background, so Griffiths doesn’t have to waste time doing an info dump that bogs down the narrative.
Dislikes: Both Nelson and Ruth suffer from terminal indecisiveness regarding their extramarital relationship, and after fourteen books of will-they-or-won’t-they star-crossed nonsense, I’m ready for a resolution. I hope they will finally embrace their feelings or break up permanently in the final book, to be released this summer.
FYI: extramarital relationship/infidelity, murder, violence, suicide, Covid-19 illness and death.
Liz Helfrich 