And on with the motley

I have now read all of the Ruth Galloway novels. They are addictive, interesting, often profoundly moving, always intricate and clever. I strongly recommend them. Elly Griffiths nails the Norfolk coast, its sky, sea, land space and fills it with its ancient bones, stones and henges and a series of modern murders. They are brilliant. And while you wait for them to arrive, listen to Bookclub on BBCSounds where she discusses Wilkie Collins The Moonstone with a group of readers. Get with it!

Liminal Places

I suppose you could say that I have been slow to catch up with thrillers and crime fiction by English or British writers. In 2009, when the Ruth Galloway novels began to be published, I was heavily into Scandi-noir and as always, anything at all written by or about Australia. So I have been a bit blindsided by discovering, when there were already eight novels, about Ruth Galloway, forensic archaeologist.

Better late than never. The reason that I have now stumbled upon Elly Griffiths is The Moonstone connection. In The Crossing Places, which is No. 1 in the series, Elly actually quotes from the novel, the description of The Shivering Sands which plays such an horrific part in The Moonstone; in this novel the place of the sands is taken up by a fictional but realistic place on the North Norfolk coast, a liminal area which has been inhabited, sanctified and walked over from the time of prehistory when it was attached to Scandinavia.

Ruth and others, including Erik (the Viking) have discovered a wooden henge in the marshland around Saltmarsh, some years later a random dog walker (or rather the dog) finds some human bones and DCI Harry Nelson arrives in Ruth’s life, not unlike a burr – you pull it off one place, only to find it sticking to another.

Together, and alarmingly they solve two crimes ten years apart, as well as finding an Iron Age burial or ritual sacrifice.

Tense, atmospheric, pacy the sky, sea and sand all around them, these two are destined to be found wherever there are bones.

The Janus Stone – more bones, another old crime and another hair-raising chase to find a killer, one who is cunningly hiding in plain sight. A very clever plot with plenty of rabbit holes to run into, trenches and digs abound and old sins hidden behind an immaculate reputation. Ruth and Harry Nelson up to their necks in it.

Nos. 3 & 4 are on the way. What a find!