A Dying Fall (Ruth Galloway Mysteries) - Hardcover

Griffiths, Elly

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0547798164 ISBN 13: 9780547798165

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013

Synopsis

Ruth Galloway is shocked when she learns that her old university friend Dan Golding has died tragically in a house fire. But the death takes on a sinister cast when Ruth receives a letter from Dan written just before he died.

The letter tells of a great archaeological discovery, but Dan also says that he is scared for his life. Was Dan’s death linked to his find? The only clue is his mention of the Raven King, an ancient name for King Arthur.

Then Ruth is invited to examine the bones Dan found. Ruth travels to Lancashire–the hometown of DCI Nelson–with both her eighteen-month-old daughter, Kate, and her druid friend, Cathbad, in tow. She discovers a campus living in fear of a sinister right-wing group called the White Hand. She also finds that the bones revealed a shocking fact about King Arthur–and they’ve mysteriously vanished. When Nelson, visiting his mother in Blackpool, learns about the case, he is drawn into the investigation, especially when Ruth and his beloved Kate seem to be in danger. Who is willing to kill to keep the bones a secret?

About this title

About the Author

ELLY GRIFFITHS is the author of the Ruth Galloway and Magic Men mystery series. She is the recipient of the Mary Higgins Clark Award and the CWA Dagger in the Library Award, and her work has been praised as “gripping” (Louise Penny), “captivating,” (Wall Street Journal) and “must-reads for fans of crime fiction” (Associated Press). She lives in Brighton, England.

From the Back Cover

PRAISE FOR THE RUTH GALLOWAY MYSTERY SERIES


Griffiths is one of England s freshest mystery writers. Her novels combine a dramatic sense of place with a complicated mystery, and with each new installment, her character of Ruth Galloway becomes more complex and dynamic. Curled Up

Galloway is an everywoman, smart, successful, and a little bit unsure of herself. Readers will look forward to learning more about her. USA TODAY

Forensic archeologist and academic Ruth Galloway is a captivating amateur sleuth an inspired creation. The Saltmarsh where Ruth lives in isolation conjures a background of intense menace an exciting new voice on the crime scene. Louise Penny


Elly Griffiths s Ruth Galloway a forensic archeologist who is prickly, tough, awkward, and vulnerable makes for the perfect amateur sleuth, and jaded copper Harry Nelson is the perfect foil. These books are must-reads I can t wait for the next one. Deborah Crombie, author of the Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James series

Forensic archeologist Ruth Galloway stirs up fears and passions among the living even as she unearths Iron Age remains. She s an uncommon, down-to-earth heroine whose acute insight, wry humor, and depth of feeling make her a thoroughly engaging companion. Erin Hart, Agatha and Anthony Award-nominated author of Haunted Ground and Lake of Sorrows.

From the Inside Flap

Ruth Galloway is shocked when she learns that her old university friend Dan Golding has died tragically in a house fire. But the death takes on a sinister cast when Ruth receives a letter from Dan written just before he died.

The letter tells of a great archaeological discovery, but Dan also says that he is scared for his life. Was Dan s death linked to his find? The only clue is his mention of the Raven King, an ancient name for King Arthur.

Then Ruth is invited to examine the bones Dan found. Ruth travels to Lancashire the hometown of DCI Nelson with both her eighteen-month-old daughter, Kate, and her druid friend, Cathbad, in tow. She discovers a campus living in fear of a sinister right-wing group called the White Hand. She also finds that the bones revealed a shocking fact about King Arthur and they ve mysteriously vanished. When Nelson, visiting his mother in Blackpool, learns about the case, he is drawn into the investigation, especially when Ruth and his beloved Kate seem to be in danger. Who is willing to kill to keep the bones a secret?

Reviews

*Starred Review* Griffiths, who won the Mary Higgins Clark Award for The Crossing Places (2010), her first novel starring forensic archaeologist Ruth Galloway, returns with the fifth in the series. Griffiths again ably fuses a contemporary murder mystery with a mystery from the long-buried past. The contemporary case revolves around the death in a fire of Dan Golding, the golden boy from Ruth’s university days, whose life ended in a tiny flat in a broken-down neighborhood near an obscure northern England university housed in an abandoned cigarette factory. The day after Ruth learns of Golding’s death, she receives a letter from him, written days before he died, begging her to come to the university and help him identify bones from a find of potentially great importance. Both Ruth and Detective Chief Inspector Nelson, her former lover and father of her daughter (it’s complicated), travel north to Lancashire—Nelson to investigate Golding’s death, which has moved from accident to murder, and Griffiths to answer her old friend’s plea. Both plot strands make compelling reading, but the way Griffiths interweaves them is absolutely masterful. As with all Ruth Galloway mysteries, the application of forensic archaeology is intriguing. Ruth examines the site of a former Roman settlement and then the bones buried beneath a sarcophagus, bones that may have belonged to King Arthur himself. Readers are in for a really good time with this flesh-and-blood bone expert. --Connie Fletcher

Edition details

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0547798164
• ISBN 13: 9780547798165
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 392