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

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Elly Griffiths' Ruth Galloway novels take for their inspiration Elly's husband, who gave up a city job to train as an archaeologist, and her aunt who lives on the Norfolk coast and who filled her niece's head with the myths and legends of that area. But one of the biggest draws is the whole theme of spirituality that is a pronounced undercurrent in each volume. A breeze from an open window is riffling through the pages of a guidebook lying on the floor, making a sound like the wings of a trapped bird.

A stag's head looms over a painted fireplace and a man sits at a desk, frowning fiercely as he dips his quill into an inkwell.

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. Ruth is juggling parenthood to Kate (who's about to turn one) whilst being thrust into this latest mystery. The series has won the CWA Dagger in the Library, and has been shortlisted three times for the Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year. 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. 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?

In this Ruth becomes involved in a literal 'room full of bones', that is a room in the basement of a museum owned by Lord Smith, whose grandfather collected aboriginal bones in Australia and took them home for his private collection. She 'believes' she is being a good mother by eating the chocolates from her daughter's advent calendar, thereby saving Kate's teeth. The first thing I have to say about this book is that is soooo boring and so do yourselves a favour and just DON'T read it especially if you are fan of crime/mystery novels! I still love Cathbad though I’m not sure I agree with him and sometimes he drives me a bit nuts even though I find him lovable and in some ways is one of my favorite characters.This story picks-up with Ruth still privately questioning her skills as a mother, and being slightly taken-aback when the house next door is sold and she meets her new neighbour. Erik Anderssen, Erik the Viking, Ruth’s tutor at university and for many years afterwards her mentor and role model. Again, the whole crew is back as well as a minor character or two from previous books (who might become major? I'm not expecting her to get a degree in forensic sciences or anything, but at least get your facts straight and don't simplify things for the sake of a plot twist.

It reads like the kind of cosy, middle-class crime drama (with emphasis on the drama rather than the crime) that you’d watch with half your brain engaged on ITV on a Sunday night – and probably that’s what it’s aiming to be one day.This fourth book in the Dr Ruth Galloway series is once again a hugely satisfying affair which manages to combine a well constructed mystery with another slice of personal drama in the lives of the quirky cast who surround our forensic archaeologist. Only if she doesn't mention forensic techniques ever again, and if Cathbad is there, because Cathbad is cool. Ruth doesn’t believe in an afterlife which, in her opinion, is all the more reason to treat human relics with respect.