Ruth Galloway #15
Elly Griffiths’ Ruth Galloway mysteries have captivated me since I read the first in 2009. Ruth herself is such an excellent character – an independent, academic woman that looks like an everyday person, one who makes mistakes and changes as time passes. Her world in Norfolk, England, is populated by a wide cast of memorable characters, and Griffith’s writing style feels unique, perfectly suited for story telling. I never regretted a minute spent with Cathbad the Druid, cantankerous DCI Harry Nelson, or determined officer Judy.
So, naturally, holding the final installment in this series in my hands, The Last Remains, was a bittersweet moment. Ruth stands on the precipice of change, faced with massive changes in her department and reckoning with some in her personal life, too. For those wondering what will happen between her and Nelson, this book will deliver answers. But she has been avoiding him lately, and avoiding making a permanent sort of choice where he is concerned, when a body appears.
Builders at a café in King’s Lynn find relatively modern bones, and they call in now frequent consultant Ruth. She reports them as modern, and police soon identify her as Emily Pickering, an archeology student who went missing roughly twenty years ago. Emily was part of a close knit group that all shared the same personal tutor, renowned scholar Leo Ballard. However, though he is a well known academic, he is far from a perfect person, and the relationships between both himself and the other students were incredibly charged.
To complicate matters further, Cathbad was a teaching assistant at the time of the disappearance. He was there at the dig where Emily was last seen. At this point, Cathbad is family to both Nelson and Ruth. Neither wants him to be involved with what happened to Emily, but it becomes clear that Cathbad knew her well. And then Cathbad, who is still weak from having Covid in the last installment, simply disappears.
As the mystery unfolds, Ruth and her friends encounter multiple brushes with the past. They visit old scenes of crimes from previous novels, and make connections to things they’ve gone through before. An unexpected character even returns before the end of the book, who was very important in a previous one. The story is both a good one on its own, but also a good capstone to the series at large.
Needless to say, my eyes were not dry for most of this read. Griffith wraps this journey up beautifully, and I didn’t feel like any threads were left untied. It’s hard to believe that this is the last Ruth Galloway book we’ll get to read, but it was such an amazing journey from start to finish. Whether you started back with the first book in the early 2000s and read all the way through, have picked up a few here and there, or are considering giving the Galloway mysteries a try for a first time, I can wholeheartedly recommend not just this installment, but the whole series. Do yourself a favor and start at the beginning – or maybe do another reread. You won’t regret it. — Margaret Agnew
Ruth Galloway timeline
The Crossing Places
The Janus Stone
The House at Sea’s End
A Room Full of Bones
A Dying Fall
The Outcast Dead
The Ghost Fields
The Woman in Blue
The Chalk Pit
The Lantern Men
The Night Hawks
The Locked Room
The Last Remains
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Margaret Agnew is the Director of the Cahokia Public Library in Cahokia, Illinois. A graduate of Ripon College and Indiana University, she has been a mystery fan and an avid reader from an early age. She was also a reviewer for Mystery Scene Magazine.