The Locked Room: a Ruth Gallway MysteryBy Elly Griffiths
First Mariner Books, 2022. 375 pages. Mystery
Three years after her mother's death, Ruth is finally sorting through her things when she finds a curious relic: a decades-old photograph of her own Norfolk cottage--before she lived there--with a peculiar inscription on the back. Ruth returns to the cottage to uncover its meaning as Norfolk's first cases of Covid-19 make headlines, leaving her and Kate to shelter in place there. They struggle to stave off isolation by clapping for frontline workers each evening and befriending a kind neighbor, Zoe, from a distance. Meanwhile, Nelson is investigating a series of deaths of women that may or may not be suicide. When he links a case to an archaeological discovery, he breaks curfew to visit Ruth and enlist her help. But the further Nelson investigates the deaths, the closer he gets to Ruth's isolated cottage--until Ruth, Zoe, and Kate all go missing, and Nelson is left scrambling to find them before it's too late.
This is the fourteenth installment in the Ruth Gallway mysteries, and I've enjoyed them all! I love the combination of archaeology and history paired with current people and events. The characters are wonderful and I was impressed by how the author tackles the beginning of the pandemic in this latest novel. She does it in a way that is easy to relate to, and not too triggering. Ruth is a flawed and highly likeable character. I highly recommend the entire series, the complexities in Ruth's life as well as those she finds in the past are fascinating and exciting.
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By Ann Cleeves
Minotaur, 2017. 535 pages. Mystery
Three very different women come together to complete an environmental survey. Three women who, in some way or another, know the meaning of betrayal ... For team leader Rachael Lambert the project is the perfect opportunity to rebuild her confidence after a double-betrayal by her lover and boss, Peter Kemp. Botanist Anne Preece, on the other hand, sees it as a chance to indulge in a little deception of her own. And then there is Grace Fulwell, a strange, uncommunicative young woman with plenty of her own secrets to hide ... When Rachael arrives at the cottage, however, she is horrified to discover the body of her friend Bella Furness. Bella, it appears, has committed suicide--a verdict Rachael finds impossible to accept. Only when the next death occurs does a fourth woman enter the picture--the unconventional Detective Inspector Vera Stanhope, who must piece together the truth from these women's tangled lives in The Crow Trap . Ann Cleeves's popular Vera Stanhope books have been made into the hit series "Vera" starring Brenda Blethyn and are available in the U.S.
By Julia Spencer-Fleming
Thomas Dunne Books, 2002. 308 pages.
It's a cold, snowy December in the upstate New York town of Millers Kill, and newly ordained Clare Fergusson is on thin ice as the first female priest of its small Episcopal church. The ancient regime running the parish covertly demands that she prove herself as a leader. However, her blunt manner, honed by years as an army pilot, is meeting with a chilly reception from some members of her congregation and Chief of Police Russ Van Alystyne, in particular, doesn't know what to make of her, or how to address "a lady priest" for that matter.
The last thing she needs is trouble, but that is exactly what she finds. When a newborn baby is abandoned on the church stairs and a young mother is brutally murdered, Clare has to pick her way through the secrets and silence that shadow that town like the ever-present Adirondack mountains. As the days dwindle down and the attraction between the avowed priest and the married police chief grows, Clare will need all her faith, tenacity, and courage to stand fast against a killer's icy heart.
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