{"id":3118,"date":"2019-04-23T04:21:09","date_gmt":"2019-04-23T11:21:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=3118"},"modified":"2019-04-23T04:21:09","modified_gmt":"2019-04-23T11:21:09","slug":"elly-griffiths-the-stone-circle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/elly-griffiths-the-stone-circle\/","title":{"rendered":"Elly Griffiths: The Stone Circle"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>As Elly Griffiths pens her eleventh Ruth Galloway novel, she comes \u2013 appropriately, given the title \u2013 almost full circle, back to her first novel.\u00a0 Cast your mind back to Ruth\u2019s teacher Eric and the henge discovered on the saltmarsh and move forward ten years, and Ruth is now dealing with Eric\u2019s son, Leif, who is in town to look at a newly discovered henge.\u00a0 Just like 10 years ago, two bodies are discovered on the site, one ancient, and one not so ancient.<\/p>\n

Somehow Griffiths\u2019 storytelling style is not only plot oriented, it\u2019s character oriented, so she\u2019s taking into account the many happenings in her character\u2019s lives over the past 10 years.\u00a0 Ruth is the mother of a 10 year old, thanks to a one night stand with the father, Detective Nelson.\u00a0 Nelson\u2019s wife is expecting a late in life baby at any moment, which may or may not be Nelson\u2019s \u2013 she\u2019d been having an affair.\u00a0 Their older daughters are unaware that Kate, Ruth and Nelson\u2019s daughter, is their sister.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s enough, really, for any book, and the joy of reading a long series means that characters can be developed, can be aged, and can change.\u00a0 Whether or not that grow and develop the way real people might is all down to the author\u2019s skill, and Griffiths is one of the best.\u00a0 All this character development is expertly woven into the texture and fabric of the central story, with neither portion losing any strength.<\/p>\n

The main story concerns the disappearance of a 12 year old girl in the 80\u2019s \u2013 the touchstone is the wedding of Charles and Diana \u2013 and the grief of a family that\u2019s never known what\u2019s happened to their daughter.\u00a0 When another present day child vanishes the search is amped up and there\u2019s a breathless end to the novel as Nelson and his team hunt for a missing baby.\u00a0 He\u2019s ever mindful of the new baby he has at home while he searches.<\/p>\n

This book is vintage Elly Griffiths, which is to say, it\u2019s excellent.\u00a0 It\u2019s a great read, the characters have surprising and funny and moving things happen to them, Cathbad is present dispensing wisdom, and the pages move so quickly through your fingers you\u2019ll be sad all over again when you finish that you now have to wait another year for the next installment.\u00a0 Thankfully, each book is well worth the wait.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As Elly Griffiths pens her eleventh Ruth Galloway novel, she comes \u2013 appropriately, given the title \u2013 almost full circle, back to her first novel.\u00a0 Cast your mind back to Ruth\u2019s teacher Eric and the henge discovered on the saltmarsh and move forward ten years, and Ruth is now dealing with Eric\u2019s son, Leif, who … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[113,6,115,114,80,8,112],"class_list":["post-3118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-archeology","tag-british","tag-cathbad","tag-charles-and-diana","tag-elly-griffiths","tag-police","tag-ruth-galloway"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3118"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3119,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3118\/revisions\/3119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}