A new Elly Griffiths' Ruth Galloway novel is always a cause for rejoicing. Amazingly, this is number 8 in a series I've been following with the greatest pleasure -- how time flies. There's something immensely comforting about these novels. Yes, crimes take place and people find themselves in danger, but you know you're in safe hands and that all will be resolved at the end. I suppose that could describe the majority of crime novels, but the great charm of these books is in the people who recurringly inhabit them, their relationships with each other, and the issues that are raised by the crimes and their motives. Central to the novels is Ruth Galloway, a forensic archaeologist and single mother, her friend DCI Nelson, a married man who happens to be her child's father, their friend Cathbad, who is a druid, and various members of Nelson's team. Then you have the added interest of Ruth's historical and archaeological background, which invariably has something to contribute to the solution of the crime. All in all I was really delighted to get a review copy, and it didn't disappoint.
Ruth and Nelson live in Norfolk, so of course the novels are set in this rather remote and slightly mysterious English county. Here we are in Walsingham, a village with a tremendous early Christian legacy, primarily associated with the Virgin Mary. It's a pilgrimage site with numerous shrines, ancient churches and chapels, dotted with various retreat houses, and surrounded by myth and legend. Given all that, it's not entirely surprising that Cathbad, house/cat sitting for a friend, spots a lovely woman in blue in the nearby churchyard and thinks he's seen a vision of the Virgin Mary. He hasn't, of course, as becomes quite clear when the poor young woman is found dead in a nearby field. She turns out to be Chloe Jenkins, a well-known model, who has been a resident in a nearby clinic specialising in addictions, The Sanctuary. Who would want to kill beautiful, gentle Chloe, who seems to have inspired great love among all who knew her? As the investigation gets underway, a further complication is added. Ruth has been contacted by an old friend, Hilary Simpson, who has become a priest and is participating in a conference at one of the retreat centres. Hilary has received a number of highly unpleasant and threatening anonymous letters from someone who is appalled by the church's admission of women to the priesthood. Could the letter writer and the murderer be the same person?
As always, the progress of investigation becomes inextricably associated with the relationship between Ruth and Nelson. Their daughter Kate, the result of a one-night stand, is now five years old, and Nelson has managed to be a good father to her as far as the circumstances allow. His beautiful wife Michelle has supposedly accepted the situation with good grace, but as we learned in the previous novel, she has become involved with one of Nelson's officers, Tim Heathfield -- she's always been rather a shadowy figure, but here we see the real unhappiness that lies under the surface. Understandably, there's always been a huge amount of unresolved tension between Ruth and Nelson, and here it comes well to the surface. I always think Griffiths does brilliantly at depicting the deeply complicated and confusing feelings these two have for each other -- both doing their best to accept the status quo, both secretly wishing and hoping that things might change but never allowing themselves to follow the thought or even admit to it. Add to that the interactions between the members of Nelson's team, the glimpses of the home life of Cathbad and his policewoman partner Judi, and the various suspects (here mostly rather peculiar members of the clergy or slightly deranged addicts) and you have a mixture that I read with huge enjoyment. Yes, it's essentially a police procedural, but it's so much more as well. Great stuff.