I have devoured every word of the Ruth Galloway series, and each time I pick one up, I am reminded again what wonderful, pure reads these books are. From the second you crack open the first page to the moment you close the cover at the end, Griffiths as a storyteller holds her reader completely in her grasp. Under her spell. Bewitched. This book is no different, though it was, to me, a bit more intense and a bit more grim as she confronts covid front and center.
It is historically significant to have lived through a pandemic – and we seem to be emerging from it at last – but as you live through something historically significant, you have no actual perspective. A start to gaining some perspective is to read a thoughtful examination of just what happened, which Griffiths provides her reader. As the book opens, Ruth is teaching an archeology class and she gets a call that there’s body on a construction site. She takes the class along as a learning experience, event letting the students bag up the bones for transportation at the end. The students are curious to discover if the body comes from a plague pit, a foreshadowing of what’s to come. read more
It wasn’t so long ago that Elly Griffiths penned the last instalment of the Ruth Galloway series – but definitely long enough to miss the characters. The Man in Black provides a delicious taste of Ruth’s world once again, as well as familiar favorites from Griffiths’ other series. However, established characters aren’t the only ones to appear in these short stories. Griffiths’ stories are brief, but full, sketches. The book introduces glimpses of many lives, just little capsules of how they think and live and feel.
