Note: Spoilers for previous books in this series.
This is the 15th book in the excellent Ruth Galloway crime series. It begins in June, 2021, with the COVID crisis still ongoing in Great Britain but beginning to abate.
Ruth Galloway, 53 and a forensic archaeologist, is now head of the archaeology department at the (fictional) University of North Norfolk. Thanks to COVID, however, enrollments are down quite a bit, and the university board is considering closing the department.
Ruth still lives in a cottage with her daughter Kate, now 12, but she thinks it is only a matter of time before Harry Nelson moves in with them.
Detective Chief Inspector Harry Nelson, head of the Serious Crime Unit of the Norfolk Police an nearly 54, is Kate’s father, and is finally separated from his wife Michelle and their children. Ruth is avoiding any discussion of new living arrangements, being quite afraid of the impending changes in her life. (In a typically droll scene so characteristic of Griffiths’ writing, Ruth told Nelson, “I just don’t want to rush things.” He replied: “Rush things? We’ve got a twelve-year-old child, for God’s sake.”)
As this installment begins, besides all the personal changes afoot, builders find a relatively new skeleton while renovating a cafe, and both Ruth and Nelson are called to the scene. Thanks to a surgical pin in the ankle, they are able to identify the remains quickly as belonging to a Cambridge archeology student named Emily Pickering who went missing in 2002.
Interestingly, Emily was someone known to Cathbad, close friend to both Ruth and Nelson. Cathbad is currently suffering from Long COVID and thinking he is about to die; his health certainly has been precarious.
As the truth about the past starts to unravel, both Cathbad and Kate vanish. This book is the professed end of the series, so unlike previous installments, we cannot be sure who will make it and who will not.
Evaluation: I enjoyed this series a great deal because the main characters are all complex, likable and funny. Yet there is still plenty of page-turning tension and a lot to learn about archeology and history in the Norfolk area. The possible ending of this series is a sad event for me, as it is I am sure for plenty of Griffiths’ fans. Fortunately she has other series going; some very good standalone novels; and books under her real name, Domenica de Rosa.
Rating: 4/5
Published in the U.S. by Mariner Books, an imprint of HarperCollins, 2023
Rhapsody in Books Weblog 
A last one? Thanks for making me aware this exists and that I’d better savor it!
I loved this series. Started in the middle with a book club and than read the rest of the series. I’m sad that it’s over but I loved the ending. Hope Ella has a new series brewing🥰
I have only recently begun reading Elly Griffiths Ruth Galloway novels. I am enjoying them very much and I’m sorry to hear that the 15th novel is the last in the series
I enjoy her story telling and will definitely read some of her other stories when I finish with Dr Ruth.