A Room Full of Bones: The Dr Ruth Galloway Mysteries 4

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A wonderfully rich mixture of ancient and contemporary . . . A welcome addition to a great series.” I do love Ruth and so many old and new characters are particularly interesting. Some people and events seemed so real to me I had urges to look them up. Ruth is depressed and overweight and she doesn't feel she's a good mother and she loves the depressing saltmarsh where she lives and she likes her job and blah blah. Yes, we get it. But one of the biggest draws is the whole theme of spirituality that is a pronounced undercurrent in each volume. Ruth's parents, the born again Christians, have provided Ruth something to rebel against and she has become a materialist. Show the proof or go away. Harry is Catholic and desperately wanted Kate christened, so much so that he made arrangements for the ceremony. In everyday life however, he's a hard headed pragmatist with no patience for mystical goings on. But both Ruth and Harry have Cathbad the Druid in their lives. Cathbad, who often seems to show up at just the right time to prevent disaster, who has an undying love of ceremonies around bonfires, and an annoying tendency to know just the detail that his friends are searching for. The book is good, just not as fascinating as the first books in the series. I hope the next one is a bit more filled with archeology than just a study of the bones in a museum.

Oh, and to add to the mystery the Museum is also holding the skeletal remains of Aborignal Natives from Australia. This has brought about a group trying to get the museum to return the remains so that they can be laid to rest in their homeland and able to find peace. Bob Woonunga has moved in next to Ruth and he is a Shaman from Australia who has come to seek the return of the bones. Cathbad thinks he may have put the curse on the museum curator, inspector Nelson and Lord Smith. Who knows. There are some really fine red herrings in this book, including some mixed-up identities, and I found that entertaining. The story is deftly told.Soon the museum's wealthy owner lies dead in his stables too. These two deaths could be from natural causes but DCI Harry Nelson isn't convinced, and it is only a matter of time before Ruth and Nelson cross paths once more. The recurring characters are interesting and have depth. The relationships developing between them make me want to leap from one book straight to the next. This is the fourth novel in the very enjoyable series featuring forensic archaeologist Dr Ruth Galloway and, for me, the most intricately plotted and exciting one I've read so far. As well as the highly likeable Ruth, it features the other familiar characters from the previous books such as DCI Harry Nelson, Cathbad the druid etc. Rich in atmosphere and history and blessed by [Griffith's] continuing development of brilliant, feisty, independent Ruth...A Room Full of Bones, like its predecessors, works its magic on the reader's imagination." -- Richmond Times-Dispatch Ruth is asked to be present at the opening of a coffin in the local museum, owned by the Smith family, so she can assess the contents. The coffin has been recently found, and is thought to contain the bones of a mediaeval bishop, Augustine. Ruth turns up at the appointed hour, only to discover the museum's curator lying prone by the coffin. Detective Inspector Harry Nelson is called in to investigate, realising that Ruth's involvement in this case is not going to make it easy for him to work on it.

In this book I was so worried about the mystical and magical re curses and such and was so glad that eventually a scientific explanation was provided as a possible probably probable explanation. I was also fine with the cause(s) being left open. Griffiths' excellent series is well-informed and original, and its setting in one of the bleaker corners of East Anglia is vividly evoked' Literary Review. * Literary Review * Ruth is asked to attend the opening of a recently discovered Bishop's coffin. When she gets to the museum holding the event, however, she finds the curator dead by the coffin. Although on the face of it his death is by natural causes, Nelson and Ruth have their suspicions. DS Judy Johnston and Cathbad again play a major part in the book. In fact, when we weren’t reading about the crime/mystery from one of the Smiths, it was Judy who was investigating. Nelson played a much smaller role when it came to carrying out actual police work. *sniff* The deaths almost seem to be investigated as sub plots but they remain an important part of every chapter.Nelson is a tough working-class northern guy, and blah blah blah. We get that too, we heard it all before (about three times in three other books, in fact) with exactly the same words you used in this book. If you can't find an original way to give information on your characters to potential new readers, maybe you should try something else, like, I don't know, writing something that ISN'T a series of books with the same characters?