stardustbookreviews posted: " #Review #TheLockedRoom #DrRuthGalloway #LibraryRead Ruth is in London clearing out her mother's belongings when she makes a surprising discovery: a photograph of her Norfolk cottage taken before Ruth lived there. Her mother always hated "
Ruth is in London clearing out her mother's belongings when she makes a surprising discovery: a photograph of her Norfolk cottage taken before Ruth lived there. Her mother always hated the cottage, so why does she have a picture of the place? The only clue is written on the back of the photo: Dawn, 1963.
Ruth returns to Norfolk determined to solve the mystery, but then Covid rears its ugly head. Ruth and her daughter are locked down in their cottage, attempting to continue with work and home-schooling. Happily, the house next door is rented by a nice woman called Zoe, who they become friendly with while standing on their doorsteps clapping for carers.
Nelson, meanwhile, is investigating a series of deaths of women that may or may not be suicide. When he links the deaths to an archaeological discovery, he breaks curfew to visit the cottage where he finds Ruth chatting to her neighbour whom he remembers as a carer who was once tried for murdering her employer.
This is book #14 in the Ruth Galloway series. Whilst part of a series, it can easily be read as a standalone book, but I would recommend reading them in series order for better understanding of the characters stories. We are back with archaeologist, Dr Ruth Galloway and time wise the book is set just as we are entering Lockdown 1! Ruth finds herself dealing with not only home schooling and tutoring, but with an old family mystery to solve. DCI Harry Nelson however is looking into cases of women who have reported to have taken their own lives, but something doesn't quite sit right about them with him and its down to his severely reduced and socially distanced team to investigate them.
I love this series of books and was keen to read this one. Ruth and Nelson are one couple who really should be together! 14 books in and I'm still waiting for Nelson to declare his undying love for Ruth, but there are so many factors which stop him from doing this. I really enjoyed this story, and whilst I finished it in just over a day, I must admit to having a real dilemma with how I felt about it. It felt very 'safe', and the investigation storyline was a little bit staid. There wasn't any real excitement initially with the cases of possible suicides, although towards the end this part of the storyline did pick up.
This book seems to focus on Ruth and Nelson, both on their relationship and on their own. Whilst I didn't think I would, I loved the lockdown theme and found myself recounting how I felt at all these important milestones! I remembered the first press briefing from Boris, the queues around the supermarket car parks, struggling to buy face masks and clapping for carers. It was very strange to see it from Ruth and Nelson's perspectives and brought a lot of memories flooding back. I also loved the storyline involving Ruth's mother, although I did guess early on where it was heading!
The storyline felt a lot more light-hearted in parts than I recall in other books of the series. Ruth and Nelson are quite drole anyway, but I found myself sniggering at both of their internal banter with themselves. Nelson always has been my favourite, and nothing happened to change that in this book! Yet again, he huffs and puffs his way through the storyline, but even more so with the inclusion of hand sanitiser, face masks, social distancing and zoom meetings! The book also had me reaching for the tissues with a sad storyline, and we are left waiting on tenterhooks at the end with a Nelson cliff-hanger!
This latest instalment was different to previous books, it wasn't as fast paced and there was less investigation, but nevertheless I thoroughly enjoyed it, as I have done with all the other books in the series and was genuinely sad to finish it! Would definitely recommend not just this book, but the rest of the series!
The Author
Elly Griffiths was born in London. She worked in publishing before becoming a full-time writer. Her bestselling series of Dr Ruth Galloway novels, featuring a forensic archaeologist, are set in Norfolk. The series has won the CWA Dagger in the Library, and has been shortlisted three times for the Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year. Her Brighton-based mystery series is set in the 1950s and 1960s. Elly has also written two mysteries featuring Detective Harbinder Kaur, The Stranger Diaries, which was a Richard & Judy bestseller and won America's most coveted accolade for crime fiction, the Edgar Award, and The Postscript Murders. Elly lives near Brighton with her husband, an archaeologist, and their cat, Gus.
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