Elly Griffiths

Dying Fall

Detective:                   DI Harry Nelson
Forensic Archeologist:   Ruth Galloway
Setting:                        :Preston/Pendle/Blackpool
Genre
Time                            :Current (Set in 2010)

This is the fifth of Elly Griffiths novels featuring Forensic Archeologist, Ruth Galloway and Detective Inspector Harry Nelson  together with a New Age Druid, Cathbad whose empathy with various strands fortunately never crosses into the paranormal.

In this story Galloway learns of the suspicious death of an undergraduate contemporary, dan golding the day before she receives a letter from him asking her to investigate the probity of some bones he has found. The letter indicates there was something frightening him and almost immediately Galloway starts getting threatening texts. Galloway however, together with Cathbad and her daughter (by Nelson) does elect to go to Pendle University.

At the same time Nelson and his wife take a holiday in Blackpool, his home town, part from nostalgia and part to renew his acquaintance with former colleagues in the Blackpool Police and discover information about the death of Golding.

The murder relates to  Golding's discovery of a sarcophagus at Ribchester which may or  may not contain the bones  of King Arthuir. It would appear that a neo nazi organisation might be concerned that the bonesmay reveal something about Arthur they consider unpalatable. But which, if any, of Golding's colleagues may be implicated.

There's a bit of hokum to this one but enjoyable non the less.

The back story of course involves Nelson's sense of responsibility for the daughter he has fathered on Kate, while he maintains his marriage to a wife who has reluctantly learned to live with her husband's one night of infidelity.

B+

Elly Griffiths' website

Previously read
The Crossing Places
The Janus Stone
The House at Seas End
A Room Full of Bones