Elly Griffiths' Ruth Galloway novels (*possible spoilers)

[Bloodybridget]

I've seen Elly Griffiths recommended on MN several times, so I picked up The Chalk Pit the other day. I do think she writes well, and am enjoying her dry humour, but baffled by logistics! The police officers are based in King's Lynn, but they're investigating incidents in Norwich, and seem to be travelling between the two locations in no time at all - which anyone who has spent time in North Norfolk, or even looked at a map, would know is impossible unless by helicopter. Example: two officers are in Norwich getting information, a colleague in KL police station wonders aloud "what's taking them so long" - well, it'll be the hour, minimum, each way on the A47, for a start!

Could it really be feasible that Norwich wouldn't have its own CID department to cover local cases? The author says she spends lots of holidays on the Norfolk coast so she must know how long it takes to get around.

Come to think of it, I wonder if Domenica de Rosa is a mumsnetter, or was when her children were younger?

@Toddlerteaplease

This book is the best of the series. I'd forgotten what the start of lockdown was like.

It was almost frightening reading everyone’s thoughts about it, wasn’t it? ‘Oh you poor, innocent dears’ is a thought I had repeatedly. It’ll be interesting to see what I think in another 5 years.

It was excellent, I was on the edge of my seat. Now the wait for the next one.

@SaltMarsh

That is good and tantalising to know! Still reading The Stone Circle here. I found myself wondering whether Ruth would be a mumsnetter and what sort of response she would get if she posted threads about her relationship dilemmas?!

I would say ‘you have a lovely home, child and cat’. Don’t mess that up for a man!

I’m so romantic 🤣

I just saw this! I wish I could go and see ‘Ruth’s’ seahenge

www.smh.com.au/world/europe/you-know-about-stonehenge-but-have-you-heard-about-seahenge-20220216-p59wsl.html

I loved "The Locked Room". One of her best, in my opinion.

Loving the Ruth love on this thread I enjoy the books and met Elly (Dominica) at a book event, she's lovely.
Agree that the books can get repetitive ( does anyone remember Ruth going on about her bloody compatmental bag?!)

Anyway for those who are interested in the henge, they're is an online event in May about the excavation fb.me/e/2jLXiGz7h

Hope that link works. 😁

I gave in, bought The Locked Room cheaply on eBay instead of waiting for the paperback, and am now on my second read. Mixed feelings about this one, surprisingly, but I don't want to comment on that too much and spoil anyone's first read!

I am reading 'The Locked Room' at present. No big spoiler to say that I just love the names of Cathbad's chickens and I like the way Elly replays that feeling of the first lockdown.

I recently got The Locked Room (after being on a long waiting list at the library, clearly lots of other Ruth fans out there).
Like a pp, mixed feelings on this one.

However I have recently treated myself to a box set of the first 10 novels from ebay and am enjoying reading through again from the beginning......

Plus did you know Seahenge is on display in the British Museum currently ?

I bring Ruth news. Elly is halfway through writing Ruth 15, The Last Remains - due out in February 2023 and available to pre-order, or time to get on those library waiting lists!

The book starts when bones are found behind a café in King’s Lynn. They are the last remains of a young woman called Emily Pickering, who disappeared nineteen years ago. The last people to see her alive were three fellow archaeology students, her sinister tutor, and Cathbad…

Sadly Elly's beloved cat, Gus, died unexpectedly but peacefully in April. She says that she misses him so much but definitely still feels his presence in the writing shed.

I forgot to add that The Night Hawks has been shortlisted for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year 2022. If you would like to vote for the winner, here’s the link: https: harrogatetheakstoncrimeaward.com/vote/
Voting closes on 8th July.

More on The Last Remains, Ruth 15:

The unmissable new book in the Dr Ruth Galloway Mysteries. Ruth and Nelson are working on a murder case in which Cathbad emerges as the prime suspect. Can they uncover the truth in time to save their friend?

When builders renovating a café in King's Lynn find a human skeleton in the wall, they immediately call for DCI Harry Nelson and Dr Ruth Galloway, Head of Archaeology at the nearby University of North Norfolk. Ruth is preoccupied with the possible closure of her department and by the fact that Nelson and his wife are now living separately. Nevertheless she agrees to take on the case.

She sees immediately that the bones are modern and they are soon identified as the remains of Katherine Sands, who went missing in the 1990s. Katherine attended a spiritual well-being course and suspicion falls on the leader of the course - Ruth's friend, Cathbad.

The Police start to investigate the group and find that there are other missing women, making matters even worse for Cathbad. The trail leads Nelson to the famous Neolithic flint mines in Grimes Graves and to an archaeology group. Ruth agrees to infiltrate the group and there meets a figure from her own past. Soon the race is on to exonerate Cathbad, but will Ruth and Nelson uncover the truth in time to save their friend?

Publisher: Quercus Publishing
ISBN: 9781529409710
Number of pages: 368
Weight: 41 g
Dimensions: 240 x 156 mm

Published 2/2/23 at £22

That's a lot of information / spoilers on a book which isn't published until next February @SaltMarsh . Are you Elly Griffiths in disguise?

Given the title 'The Last Remains',
I have been wondering if book number 15 will be the final book in the series. I read that originally there were to be 10 books - so that's a 50% increase - and presumably the series won't go on forever .

My reservation for The Locked Room came through in April. Unfortunately I had sight problems at the time and was waiting for cataract surgery, and knew I wouldn't be able to read a print copy within 3 weeks. So I cancelled the reservation and am now waiting for it to come through again.

I've also put in a suggestion for purchase for her next new book, due in September, featuring a possible new series character who has a boss called Harbinder Kaur (for anyone who's read The Stranger Diaries or The Postscript Murders).

I'm still waiting for a copy of The Locked Room to come through from one of the library services I use, or even better for it to be a Kindle deal.

My Elly Griffiths purchase requests were successful and The Locked Room are now on order with me at the top of the queue, but more excitingly, from Netgalley, I now have an advance egalley of Bleeding Heart Yard, featuring Harbinder Kaur from The Stranger Diaries and the Postscript Murders, though maybe not as the central character.

Only just started this series the other month and just about to start book 9, not read a series this fast in my life. I would like to see Kate Winslet as Ruth and maybe Richard Armitage as Nelson.

I started reading these during lockdown. I loved, loved the Stranger Diaries and the Postscript Murders, but find the Ruth series a bit hit or miss (possibly because I started reading the later books).

Cathbad irritates me, possibly because the first book I read was a later one and people kept saying "Cathbad!" in revered tones, but EG hadn't actually introduced him in that book yet so it was like, who or what the fuck is a Cathbad and why is everyone so obsessed with them/him/her/it. Then when Cathbad did make an appearance it was just some bloke in a cape.

Love EG's use of space and how well she evokes the landscape of Norfolk (despite the geography). I am a bit irritated by her tendency to reel off factual information about characters rather than introduce the information naturally through dialogue. There was one book in particular that was really bad for this, practically every page had something like, "Ruth picks up the phone and calls Frank, the man she's been dating. Frank is from Texas and has three daughters: Lucy who is 23 and studying marine biology at Miami University after dropping out of her previous course in accountancy and has a toddler named Mark; Stephanie who is 19 and lives in England and is currently doing her A Levels in English, Maths, Psychology, and Geography, and has a boyfriend named Roger who is 20 and works in a car garage; and Emma who is 10 and lives with her mother Rachel in Texas. Rachel remarried to a man named Michael, who was born in...." When literally none of these people appear in the book or are even mentioned again. It was like having to read a very dry Wikipedia bio detailing everyone's extended family history whenever a new character arrived. I remember one scene where Nelson's daughter turns up for one page and there's a whole flat exposition paragraph about her, which would have been so easy to put into dialogue.

Locked room is 99p on kindle daily deals today! Not sure if anyone is still waiting to read it, but I'm thinking about buying it for future comfort re-reads even though I've already read a library copy

I've been waiting ages for a library copy - one actually came through in the spring but I had to cancel it because I couldn't read print books at that point due to cataracts - something which I thought only happened to people 20-30 years older than me - I'm only middle aged! I've now had surgery and can read again.

I spotted and snapped up the book, checked that it has page numbers and then cancelled my library reservation(s).

I do regularly buy 99p deals that I've read from the library, or that I've borrowed in paper or digital form, because I am very short of shelf space, floor space and any other way of keeping books, and then I can pass on the dead tree versions.

@TheWheeledAvenger

Have you tried Elly Griffiths' Brighton series? Also known as Stephens & Mephisto or Magic Men, but those series titles make more sense for the first 4 books, less so than #5 and #6 (trying to avoid spoilers). First book is The Zig Zag Girl and they regularly come up on Kindle deals.

I'm reading an advance review copy (electronic) of Bleeding Heart Yard, which features Harbinder Kaur. There are no references to Mumsnet or any similar website, but I can totally imagine many of the characters in this one, or people who know them, posting on MN. Maybe in the AIBU threads.

I'm not sure I can imagine Ruth on MN, I'm wondering about the other characters.....

@elkiedee how do you get advance review copies of books please ?

@shinynewapple22

There are quite a lot of ways to get review copies of books. I have a lot of reviews still to write and even more books that I requested intending to read and review them.

The easiest way if you are happy to read the books on a Kindle or even a Kindle app on your smartphone or computer is Netgalley - www.netgalley.co.uk. Quite a lot of publishers - large, small, in between, for example Penguin, Virago, Oneworld, Canongate, and Quercus who publish nearly all of Elly Griffiths' work, list books available for review and you ask. I've had lots of requests declined because I'm rubbish at actually writing and posting proper reviews and I haven't really progressed my blog beyond setting up a page with a title!

But even so I still get a huge number of books including a lot of the Ruth Galloway books (but not the most recent one), most of her Brighton series, again, not the most recent one, and all 3 Harbinder Kaur series. If I'm declined, I can add the others to various wishlists I keep, and look out for Kindle daily deals, comb library catalogues etc. Librarians and booksellers can use Netgalley as well as professional journalists and reviewers and total amateurs.

You can set up your own blog or just post on all the sites. If you manage to get any books and review them, I'd love to know - please come back and pm me if you like, and I'll read your reviews and do likes (only if I like your reviews), comment if I have something friendly to say, etc. That could help you build up a profile and get better books. Good luck.

Thanks @elkiedee . I use a kindle anyway - I have kindle unlimited so I get a lot of series for my £7.99 per month anyway - but obviously newer or better known titles I have to pay for- particularly when I've reached the end of a series and put an advanced order in on Amazon - think I paid about £12.99 for a new title recently.

Net galley is certainly worth a look - I would probably also be behind on reviews though. Can I ask if you feel that you need to give a positive review - even if something is awful and you don't finish it?

Absolutely not. There's an option to give feedback or to say you won't be giving feedback and explain. I think that's better than not writing the reviews. You can do that on Netgalley and then choose which books you share your opinions of elsewhere. Your social media profile is important, and some publishers or the publicists for some books will just want people working in the book trade and making buying decisions, professional reviewers etc. You can also give quite brief feedback which I'm thinking of doing - plenty of two liners on site, and then I can still write proper reviews later.

Good luck.

Sea henge is actually in the museum in kings Lynn they removed the wooden posts and recreated them - I’ve seen it