The Outcast Dead by Elly Griffiths: A review

The "outcast dead" of the title refers to the unknown dead, plague victims, lepers, or simply poor, mostly people who had no one to mourn them. The book begins with a litany for these outcasts and though archaeologist Ruth Galloway is not religious, she does appreciate the sentiment of recognizing the humanity of these dead. 

This entry in the archaeological mystery series features two mysteries. One dates to the Victorian era and the other actually occurs in the current day.

The Victorian-era aspect of the story revolves around a notorious murderer of children. In her latest dig, at Norwich Castle, Ruth has uncovered the bones of Jemima Green who was dubbed "Mother Hook" and who was hanged in 1867 for the murder of five children who were in her care.

Meanwhile, in the modern day, another child murderer, who has been dubbed the "Childminder," is abroad in the area. DCI Harry Nelson is investigating the case of three children who were found dead in their home. The first two were originally determined to have died from sudden infant death syndrome but the coroner has suspicions about the latest one. Then another child is abducted. Could there be two kidnappers/murderers or is one person behind it all?

Ruth and Harry, of course, have a history. They had had a brief affair, the result of which is a much-loved daughter, two-and-a-half-year-old Kate. Harry was married at the time of the affair and is still married to the same woman. That isn't going to change, but he adores Kate and revels in his relationship with her and the time he is able to spend with her. Meanwhile, his wife (who seems to be a saint!) supports him in this.

As a result of her archaeological finds, Ruth has become the reluctant star of a television series called "Women Who Kill" in which she works with a history expert, Professor Frank Barker. It is an extremely uncomfortable position for a woman who would prefer to work in anonymity.

The Druid Cathbad, one of my favorite characters in these books, had moved away to Pence by the end of the previous book in the series but he still manages to insert himself into this one. Moreover, we get to meet his adult daughter as well.

All in all, this was a worthy addition to a series that I have greatly enjoyed over the years. It combined my interest in archaeology (as a teenager, my career wish was to be an archaeologist) with getting to better know the main characters in the series, and it moved their personal relationships forward in a believable manner. There are several more entries in this series and I look forward to reading them all!

 

 

A Dying Fall by Elly Griffiths: A review

I've been working my way through the series by Elly Griffiths that features forensic archaeologist Ruth Galloway. This is number five in the series. 

The plot here is that an old friend of Ruth's has died in a house fire, but before he died he had written to her saying that he had made a ground-breaking archaeological discovery. He didn't explain what the discovery was. Could his discovery have had something to do with his death? And could the discovery have been related, as is hinted, in some way to King Arthur? Ruth, of course, is determined to find the answer to those questions and to find out what that mysterious discovery was. 

She travels to Blackpoll which just happens to be the home territory of DCI Harry Nelson with whom Ruth had had a brief - very brief - fling (Harry is married.) which resulted in her getting pregnant, and that resulted in their daughter Kate. So off she goes with Kate and, of course, Cathbad the druid who is Kate's godfather, in tow. 

Then one of Cathbad's friends, who may have some connection to the mystery, commits suicide. And the plot, as they say, thickens.

I find Ruth to be a very sympathetic character with her worries about her weight and her parenting skills. She is sensitive to how others see her and regard her both personally and professionally. Moreover, she is utterly devoted to her daughter but she has not been able to achieve true harmony in her life. Her relationships with men have been problematic and the one with her current boyfriend is faltering, and, based on what we know of him, that is probably a good thing! 

Archaeology has long been an interest of mine. In fact, at one point in my life, I wanted to be an archaeologist, but in the end, I chose another branch of the social sciences. The fact that Elly Griffiths manages to weave strands of information regarding archaeology and history into her Ruth Galloway plots is one of the strengths of this series and one of the reasons that I greatly enjoy reading her books. There are at last count (I believe) fifteen books in the series so I have at least ten more chances to experience that enjoyment.
 

Mini reviews

What with one thing and another, I have seriously fallen behind on doing reviews of the books that I've read, so, in an attempt to catch up, here are a few mini-reviews. 

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A Room Full of Bones (Ruth Galloway, #4)

by Elly Griffiths

I have been very much enjoying reading Elly Griffiths' series featuring forensic archaeologist Ruth Galloway. This one is set in Norfolk where the Smith Museum is preparing to open a coffin containing the bones of a medieval bishop. but when Ruth arrives to supervise, she finds the dead body of the curator Neil Topham beside the coffin. Moreover, it was not a natural death and it seems related to other recent uncanny events in the area. Not to worry though; Even though DCI Harry Nelson has fallen ill (another of those uncanny events), Ruth and her druidic friend Cathbad are on the job!

My rating: 3 stars

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Blue Wolf in Green Fire

by Joseph Heywood

This is another series I'm enjoying reading. It features Upper Michigan Conservation Officer Grady Service and is the second entry in the series. In this one, there are ongoing protests by a group of animal rights activists. The protests appear, at least on the surface, to be related to a double murder at a wolf lab which resulted in the release into the wild of a rare "blue" wolf. Service must defend his hallowed Mosquito Wilderness and the wolves that live there against poachers out to bag that "blue" wolf.

My rating: 3 stars

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Independence Square

by Martin Cruz Smith

I have long loved Smith's series featuring Detective Arkady Renko. This is the tenth in the series and I haven't found a clunker in the bunch. This one is a bit different from the others in that it has an autobiographical factor. We learn that Detective Renko is being diagnosed as having Parkinson's Disease, which in fact the author of the series has. It makes the story particularly personal. Also, there is a current affairs aspect as the story unrolls against the backdrop of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Arkady is determined not to dwell on his illness and he throws himself into work, searching for an anti-Putin activist who has disappeared. The activist, Karina, is the daughter of an acquaintance of his and he meets and falls for Karina's roommate, Elena, a Tatar from Ukraine. Complications abound!

My rating: 3 stars

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Beyond That, the Sea

by Laura Spence-Ash

This one unfolds against the backdrop of World War II. In 1940, a working-class couple in London makes the difficult decision to send their eleven-year-old daughter Beatrix to America for her safety. She will live with a family there for the duration of the war. Bea is scared and angry at being sent away from home but arriving in Boston, she meets her new family, Mr. and Mrs. Gregory, and their sons, William and Gerald and they simply fold her into their world. It is a more affluent world than the one she was used to back in England, but Bea soon becomes fully integrated and the Gregory family becomes more natural to her than her birth family.

My rating: 3 stars

    

The House at Sea's End by Elly Griffiths

I am thoroughly enjoying Elly Griffiths' series featuring forensic archaeologist Dr. Ruth Galloway. My enjoyment is mostly related to the character of Dr. Galloway. She is a single middle-aged woman, the type of character that in many books would be portrayed as waiting and wishing for that special man to come along and complete their life. Not Ruth Galloway! She's much too busy digging up and interpreting the remains of the past. She is living the life she always dreamed of. 

This is the third entry in the series and in it, we find that Ruth has just given birth to her daughter, Kate, and she is struggling with the difficulties of juggling motherhood and work. 

When human bones surface on a remote Norfolk beach, Ruth is called in to investigate. This necessarily brings her back into contact with DCI Harry Nelson, the married father of her daughter. Awkward? To say the least!

The bones turn out to be around seventy years old bringing an association with the World War II era. But meanwhile, Ruth has been brought in to supervise the opening of a coffin that has been excavated near a medieval church. When she arrives on site she finds the museum's curator, Neil Topham, lying dead beside the coffin. And, of course, DCI Nelson is brought in to investigate the case. So Ruth is once again embroiled in a murder case alongside DCI Nelson.

There have been other spooky incidents recently and there is a suspicion that they are the work of a group called the Elginists, the goal of which is to repatriate the museum's extensive collection of Aboriginal skulls. Among the unexpected incidents has been the untimely death of the museum's owner, Lord Smith.

In addition to Ruth and Nelson, all the usual secondary characters are on hand for this one, including the sort of druid, Cathbad. In fact, Cathbad might be my favorite character in the series along with Ruth's cat, Flint. Those two are full of personality and it would be a much duller series without them.  

The Janus Stone by Elly Griffiths: A review

 

This is the second in Elly Griffiths' Ruth Galloway series and, just as with the first one, it was quite an enjoyable read for me. I find Ruth to be quite a relatable character (maybe it's her weight problems!) and archaeology and mythology have long been important interests of mine. At one time I harbored a desire to study archaeology and make that my career, but ultimately I opted for a more workaday branch of the humanities/social sciences. So Ruth's activities are subjects that I know a little about and about which I am always interested to read more - even in a fictional account.  

Galloway is a forensic archaeologist who is extremely intelligent and good at her job but is personally awkward and vulnerable. In this sense, her vulnerability is increased by the fact that she is nearing forty and is pregnant and unmarried.

This case once again brings her into contact with DCI Harry Nelson who is brought in to investigate the mystery of some old bones, belonging to a child, that were found when a former children's home was being demolished to make way for some luxury housing units. The skeleton is missing its skull and the question is, is this a crime scene? When was the child buried and why buried here? Two children had disappeared from the home years earlier and had never been found. Could this skeleton be one of them? 

We get to spend quite a bit of time with a local Druid named Cathbad who is a friend of Ruth's and seems to have a way of popping up everywhere. He involves himself in Nelson's investigation and he is aware that in fact Nelson, who is married and is father to two teenage daughters, is also the father of Ruth's unborn child.

A strength of this series and this particular book is its strong characterizations and also the description of the setting. I would describe the plot as character-driven but the setting is almost an additional character in and of itself. The Norfolk salt marshes where Ruth lives in an isolated home loom over everything and give the tale a very gothic feel. I look forward to reading more of this series and getting to know Ruth and her salt marshes even better.

The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths: A review

This is the first in Elly Griffiths' series of books featuring the forensic archaeologist Ruth Galloway. (Parenthetically, I once knew a woman named Ruth Galloway and I was curious to see if the fictional character would be anything like her. Answer: Only in being extremely intelligent and independent.)

This Ruth Galloway lives in a remote area of England near Norfolk called Saltmarsh. It is the area where the land meets the sea, a place that was sacred to the inhabitants who lived there during the Iron and Bronze Ages. Ruth is nearing forty, is single, and slightly overweight, and she lives with her two cats in a cottage on Saltmarsh.

Detective Chief Inspector Harry Nelson asks Galloway for her help when a child's bones are discovered on a nearby beach. He believes that the bones may be those of a child who went missing ten years earlier and he needs Galloway's help to determine their age. It turns out that they are actually two thousand years old, but Galloway's interest in the case of the missing child is piqued.

Since the child (named Lucy) disappeared ten years before, DCI Nelson has been receiving bizarre letters referencing her and speaking of ritual and sacrifice. Was Lucy sacrificed in some sort of pagan ritual? 

Then another child goes missing and the search intensifies to find the missing children and solve the mystery of their disappearance. Ruth Galloway is drawn into that search.

Galloway is also drawn to Harry Nelson and he is drawn to her, even though he is married. They bond over their mutual need to find out what has happened to the missing children. As the investigation progresses that bond grows stronger.  

Galloway's mentor Erik, as well as her ex-boyfriend Peter, and her friend Shona are also involved in Galloway's archaeological dig. The author's depiction of all the characters, most especially Galloway, is a strong point of the plot as is her description of the cold and desolate landscape where the action occurs.

This was an intriguing beginning for the series, a well-developed plot that drew me in and made me feel a part of the story. I liked Ruth Galloway quite a lot and I look forward to getting to know her better. Fortunately, there are several more entries in the series that will allow me to do that.