Please no. This might well be my favourite Dr. Ruth Galloway mystery. Book number fifteen in a succession that spans twenty years of the characters’ lives, also reads as if it may be the last. The way things land between Dr. Ruth and DCI Nelson both romantically and professionally, leads them on a new trajectory and Griffiths confirms, it is the last book “for now.” I can’t imagine what it’s like for her to say goodbye to these characters.
When the last remains of Emily Pickering, a young Cambridge archaeology student who disappeared in 2002, are discovered walled up in a café, Ruth is called in to investigate. She gets involved, though she’s busy at UNN, her own university, as the archaeology department for which she is the head is about to be closed down. Naturally DCI Nelson is involved as well as the charming DCI Clough, as it’s happened on his patch. Then our old friend, Cathbad, who nearly died in book fourteen and is suffering from long Covid disappears, leaving everyone devastated. The usual players are involved, along with Ruth’s new sister Zoe, and there’s even an unexpected and timely cameo by an old victim.
Ruth and Nelson struggle with the intricacies of their longtime relationship, given that it’s coming around to Father’s Day and he has two families: the first who seem to take precedence and the second, Ruth and their daughter Kate, who get Nelson time when he’s willing and able. I found myself wanting to bat them both upside the head a few times. Nelson can be thoughtless and Ruth indifferent. The combination leads to romantic stasis, which is why old David, her colleague at UNN archaeology thinks he has a shot.
I think what really draws me to this series besides the archaeological and mythological references are the small towns and cities in the north and east of England, some of which I’d like to visit because of Griffiths’s descriptions. Norfolk, where Ruth lives on the Saltmarsh and King’s Lynn which looks particularly charming, Lincoln and Durham; as well as Blackpool, a northwest coast town billed the UK’s favourite playground. Grimes Graves, a Neolithic flint mine is a creepy setting in this story. I’ll take a pass on climbing down one of those shafts, even though Griffiths’s made the decent herself.
One day, I’d like to begin at the beginning and reread the whole series in order. Why hasn’t this series been picked up for TV yet? Don’t you think it’s about time?
If you’re a fan of British cozy mystery author Elly Griffiths, you’ll know that she’s been writing one Ruth Galloway archaeological mystery each year for over a decade. This is book fourteen. When the pandemic hit, she had to make a decision. Do I set this story in the current reality or not? It’s a decision many authors faced and will continue to face as we move through history. As no-nonsense as Ruth, Griffiths decided to not only to set it during the pandemic but to make it a kind of homage to plagues and isolation. I admit that I found bits triggering at times as I followed the characters through the horror and hassle of the opening weeks of the plague in Britain, February 2020.
Ten-year-old Kate is home, bored, doing school online. Nelson’s wife and young son are away looking after her mother. There are pandemic references: the evening clanging cheer to front-line workers, masking or not, grocery cues, empty shelves and the stocking of staples including toilet paper, lockdown laws, social distancing, two-metre walks out-of-doors, office staff on rotation and working from home, learning to Zoom, teaching from home, loved ones taken away to hospital and the grief of those quarantined and left behind who are not permitted to visit, references to plagues past, and the feeling of never being able to escape the fear and isolation it conjures.
Griffith’s strength is her ability to weave in these facts in a kind of matter-of-fact way, so they never overpower the mystery, which concerns healthy women who appear to be suddenly committing suicide. One woman is even found in her bedroom with the door locked from the outside.
Griffiths’ books are always gently packed with tidbits and meaningful symbols. The title signifies, not only the isolation of plagues in general, but how our “killer” operates, locking victims in total darkness. As is always the case, Nelson and Ruth end up tangled in dangerous climatic scenes of discovery.
Nelson, who’s living alone while his wife’s away, comes calling on Ruth until his grown daughter arrives home, needs her daddy, and he goes running off. That’s Nelson, protector of all and burly man of guilt. Ruth takes it all in her stride, even the discovery of her mother’s lifelong secret—a secret that will come to affect her present moment in a big way.
One thing that bothered me: I came away not understanding the killer’s motivation. He had the means and opportunity but the motive seemed lacking. Perhaps I missed something.
One thing I loved: the “Who’s Who” character pages at the end of the book. My favourite character is Cathbad and, true to form, the druid shaman embraces the pandemic by offering Zoom yoga classes every morning to his children and friends.
Don’t let the pandemic setting deter you. Just be aware that if you start fretting about going out in public, you’re likely triggered. We live in a different time now and this too shall pass.
The Life and Death of a Druid Prince: The Story of Lindow Man An Archaeological Sensation. Anne Ross & Don Robins. Summit Books: New York, 1989
This is an “old“ book now as you can see from the date, written by Dr. Anne Ross, Ph.D. in archaeology and expert on the Celts, and Dr. Don Robbins, Ph.D. in solid-state chemistry and faculty of the Institute of Archaeology in the University of London. Credentials aside, the book is written for the popular audience; hence the title, “archaeological sensation.” It is, perhaps, the first of its kind, and that makes it important. Also, it’s accessible, written in the style of an historical novel, without all the archaeological jargon, and this I like.
A writerly-friend recommended it to me because I’d studied and written about Old Croghan Man for To Kill a King, another Iron Age bog body, who was unearthed by a peat cutter in June 2003. Lindow Man came first. He was discovered on Lughnasadh (August 1) 1984, and before him came the Danish bog bodies.
In this book, the authors attempt to prove that Lindow Man (called such because he was unearthed in Lindow, England) was “a Druid nobleman and priest, ritually murdered in a spectacular Celtic May Day ceremony, sacrificing his young life to appease the gods following a brutal invasion by the Roman army in what has been called ‘the darkest hour in Britain’s blackest year’.”
reconstruction of Lindow Man
What do I think of their book-long argument?
There is much conjecture. They suggest this and that, refute the argument, then make their point; a strategy that stretches a paper into a sensational book for profit. At times, I hear myself saying “that doesn’t make sense” and then they go on to tell me why it doesn’t make sense, which I already know. Such is the price of publication. I can accept their key argument, but there is a lot of filler.
The “Celtic” history is compelling and highlights much that I’ve read on Druid beliefs:
Druids were gods incarnate and could be both Druid and King.
Bards trained for up to twenty years. They memorized secret lore in triads using complex meter and rhyme
The Celts were not afraid of death as their spiritual beliefs were so strong so made incredible warriors. I envy them their strong beliefs.
They believed in reincarnation, both human and animal. In the interim, the spirit would go to a happy Otherworld of physical pleasures to await rebirth.
They performed sacrifices to ensure victory and show gratitude to the gods.
Captives from battle were sacrificed to the gods, but there were also willing sacrifices, and self-sacrifice
They believed in ancestor worship. The dead could be tricksters with potent power (think of the sidhe: faeries from passage graves)
The Druids had power over the elements. Macbeth echoes this belief.
In the end, the authors give Lindow Man a name: “Lovernios” because of his fox fur armband, and assert that he was an Irish king: a well-nourished noble, unblemished and so not a warrior, with manicured hands much like Old Croghan Man; small by our standards, 5’6” and only 154 pounds, O-blood type, an insular Celt.
The authors assert there was a trade route for Wicklow gold, supervised by the Druids, that ran from Ireland through Anglesey, Wales, into England. And this is the route “Lovernios” took to arrive in Lindow. They provide several maps and offer two appendixes: one of The Druids, and a second on Celts and Germans.
They hypothesize that “Lovernios” offered himself for sacrifice on Beltane in 60AD in a desperate attempt to stop the Romans who had already taken control over much of England. This makes sense to me.
There is an excellent piece on the Celtic Queen Boudica of the Iceni. “She was flogged and her daughters raped, and she vowed bloody vengeance” (87). Boudica sacked three provincial cities, including London, but was defeated, fled, and committed suicide. I’m intrigued by Boudica and want to know more. Why hasn’t her movie been made?
The reason for sacrifice must be epic: a life and death situation, not just for one but for all. Either bad weather and crop failure equaling slow starvation, poor decision-making, or invasion. In this case, the Roman invasion of Britain could be motivation for such a sacrifice. The Roman force was just too strong.
Lindow Man ate charred pancakes, and drank water with mistletoe, as was customary for sacrifice, and died a Triple Death (as did Old Croghan Man.) Kneeling, he accepted three blows to the head that left him stunned. Then a thrice-knotted garrot strangled him at the same time as his jugular was severed, the blood running into a cauldron, and finally he was tethered in the water as an offering. (I will note here that Old Croghan Man had defensive wounds so was not entirely willing but was also tethered in the water by withies.)
Lindow Man at the time of his discovery
Is their argument plausible? Indeed it is. Since that time, the idea of Kingship & Sacrifice has been studied and written about by other archaeologists including Dr. Eamonn Kelly, who created the current exhibit at the National Museum of Archaeology in Dublin.
Griffiths’s latest Ruth Galloway archaeological crime mystery sends us forward in time as well as backward. She’s now Head of Archaeology at North Norfolk U and her daughter, Kate, is thirteen. DCI Nelson, Kate’s father, and the love of Ruth’s life, is still living with his wife and helping raise their three-year-old son (although his parentage is questionable if I remember correctly). But, that’s the kind of guy Nelson is. But hey, come on, don’t you think it’s time you lived your truth, Nelson?
There’s plenty here for readers who enjoy unravelling a murder mystery along with Nelson’s crack detective team, while delving into the lives of old familiars—Ruth & Nelson, Cathbad & Judy—and there’s a new archaeologist in town, David Brown, whose enthusiasm and connection with The Night Hawks make him suspect, and Ruth terribly annoyed.
The Night Hawks are a group of amateur archaeologists and metal detectorists, who wander at night searching for prize loot buried under England’s soil. They discover a Bronze Age hoard along with a three-thousand-year-old body on the beach, and nearby another body—a man recently deceased. Then they discover a bloody scene at a spooky farm house that appears to be a murder-suicide carried out by the husband, a scientist who’s not a very nice guy at all. Add to this soup, the legend of the Black Shuk, a giant black dog with red eyes that prowls the vicinity of Black Dog farm where the alleged murder-suicide occurred, and you’ve got an up-all-night-read brewing.
ellygriffiths.co.uk
One year, I’ll read this whole series from beginning to end again. I’d love to see this series come to television. Producers, please.
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