The Ruth Galloway Mystery series is one of the best, most endearing and fascinating mystery series I have ever read. The series follows Ruth who is a forensic archaeologist Professor at a university in Norfolk UK. She lives by the sea next to marsh lands in a lonely cottage and though that sounds grey and dull it is a homely and anchoring setting. Ruth’s character is brilliant and thoughtful with a trenchant POV and her vulnerabilities are common ones that many women can instantly relate to. Her friends are mostly quirky individualists or academics or police (long story that) and not stock supporting characters, their stories are part of the series too. What makes the series so satisfying is it builds on the preceding novels while introducing new characters in the latest book while exploring prior characters back stories, who grow and change and tie both into the current action which keeps the series fresh and interesting. Her writing style is a blend of realism and whimsy and grounded observations together with haunting moody mysticism. Elly Griffiths is a master of building suspense slowly and steadily and alternating it with simultaneous situations occurring alongside each other which form a shifting cumulative narrative picture. It is a well-loved series for me because the characters create an emotional pull which I find is rare in a mystery.
The Last Remains can be read as a standalone, but I cannot it imagine it would have the same impact. It continues in the tradition of the series of drawing upon past relationships while enlarging the scope. Ruth and her young daughter are going through transitions and her relationship with Nelson is at a turning point, but these are back drops to the central story; a cold case which is reopened when a skeleton is found hidden behind a shop wall and identified as a young woman who disappeared 20 years ago. A circle of archeology students taught by an eccentric professor and their cafe friends and the victim’s relatives plus Ruth’s good friend Cathbad, all are suspects. The plot is slow to get going but the many threads and characters are each slowly woven together, and the resolutions are intensely moving and suspenseful. Another gripping, wonderful mystery, the 15th in this series that delivers once again.
I rate this suspenseful mystery 4 druid capes using elements from the book!
Plot: ***
Characters: ****
Setting: ****
Romance: ****
Humor: ***
Social themes: ***
