DCI Nelson has been receiving threatening letters telling him to ‘go to the stone circle and rescue the innocent who is buried there’. He is shaken, not only because children are very much on his mind, with Michelle’s baby due to be born, but because a …

Ruth is asked to attend the opening of a recently discovered Bishop's coffin. When she gets to the museum holding the event, however, she finds the curator dead by the coffin. Although on the face of it his death is by natural causes, Nelson and Ruth have their suspicions. Ruth Galloway teams up again with Harry Nelson and they do some deep and extensive research. They find out that the house where the construction project took place was once an orphanage. Going forward, Ruth and Harry get in touch with the priest that was in charge of the orphanage. The priest does in fact remember the disappearance of two children.

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Forensic archeologist and academic Ruth Galloway is a captivating amateur sleuth-an inspired creation. I identified with her insecurities and struggles, and cheered her on. " -- Louise Penny, author of the bestselling Armand Gamache series

I am hooked on this series. I am finding it like a box of chocolates that I can't put down. I am thinking about creating a new shelf for the Galloway series - "coronavirus escapes," which will include anything I have read since March 2020 that helps me avoid the present reality. It is Halloween night in King’s Lynn, and Dr Ruth Galloway is attending a strange event at the local history museum – the opening of a coffin containing the bones of a medieval bishop. But what Ruth finds is the body of the museum’s curator lying besid … All across the USA, people are showing up dead. The deaths don't appear to be connected in any way until one particular death occurs and gets the Secretary of Defense's attention. He arranges for a task force to investigate. Nelson is a tough working-class northern guy, and blah blah blah. We get that too, we heard it all before (about three times in three other books, in fact) with exactly the same words you used in this book. If you can't find an original way to give information on your characters to potential new readers, maybe you should try something else, like, I don't know, writing something that ISN'T a series of books with the same characters?Ruth Galloway is a remarkable, delightful character...A must-read for fans of crime and mystery fiction." -- Associated Press Galloway is an everywoman, smart, successful and a little bit unsure of herself. Readers will look forward to learning more about her." -- USA Today

I absolutely love the characters in this series. The mysteries are wonderful and I never manage to work out the solution, but it is really the characters that are the icing on the cake. The Ruth Galloway Series is a one of a kind piece of art. The pieces of writing are interesting and intriguing and they will touch the heart and mind of any individual that decides to dive into them. The first thing I have to say about this book is that is soooo boring and so do yourselves a favour and just DON'T read it especially if you are fan of crime/mystery novels! I was also worried about how vegans and animal rights people were portrayed and it was mixed, though nothing bad was said about the food, and it didn’t end up reflecting on animal rights vegans quite a poorly as I’d feared, and wasn’t completely unrealistic given that there are subcultures in the vegan/ar movement. I suppose just to have this content in a regular book I appreciated: vegan food, vegans, animal rights activists. IN a non-vegan promoting or “vegan” or “animal rights” book this is a big deal. Like all crime series, it's the main protagonist that you end up rooting for. Ruth is juggling parenthood to Kate (who's about to turn one) whilst being thrust into this latest mystery.

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Ruth is depressed and overweight and she doesn't feel she's a good mother and she loves the depressing saltmarsh where she lives and she likes her job and blah blah. Yes, we get it. A second dramatic death draws together the curious results of Ruth’s archaeological examination of Bishop Augustine’s remains with the Slaughter Hill racing stables and a series of threatening anonymous letters that Lord Smith has received. The imagery of snakes is common to both medieval Christianity and Australian dreamtime stories and Elly Griffiths utilises this to full spooky effect has more than one character experiences terrifying hallucinations and portents of death. Are there paranormal elements in play, or is there a more prosaic explanation for what's going on? A wonderfully rich mixture of ancient and contemporary . . . A welcome addition to a great series ( Guardian)

I don’t know what to make of the crimes presented in this book. They are contrived at best. There is also som aboriginal spiritual issues going on, due to some bones kept in a private collection. Too many different directions all at once.I will admit I’m reading these books for the soap opera like relationship of the main characters above all else. And although I will stress that the focus is much more on the mystery in this book than the other three, Griffiths still blessed us with some romantic moments. Boiled human bones have been found in Norwich’s web of underground tunnels. When Dr Ruth Galloway discovers they were recently buried, DCI Nelson has a murder enquiry on his hands. The boiling might have been just a medieval curiosity – now it suggests …