The Lantern Men: Dr Ruth Galloway Mysteries 12 (The Dr Ruth Galloway Mysteries)

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Ruth has taken a new post in Cambridge; academic recognition for her work and experience. She is living with Frank who is devoted to Ruth and doted on her daughter Kate. Nelson is getting on with his life still with Michelle and his focus is perhaps more centred on their son George. Nelson is frustrated that despite getting a guilty verdict on serial killer Ivor March he has been unable to link him to two other missing women whose bodies have not been found. In this book, Ruth has moved from her cottage on the Norfolk saltmarshes to live with her new partner, Frank, in Cambridge. Kate is doing well in her new school and life seems to have settled into a different rhythm. But it’s not long before Ruth is asked by Nelson to help find missing victims of a recently convicted murderer called Ivor March. It’s suspected that March has been killing women over many years, and now he’s in jail he’s taunting the police about where bodies might be buried. Worryingly, he’s also demanding that Ruth is involved because she’s the only person he trusts to do the digging. The skill of the book is the premise of The Lantern Men and the sense of foreboding that draws women to danger like moths to a candle. This mystical tale of a malevolent presence over marshland and the fens is as scary as Candyman or Dracula. You are brought fully into this sense of myth and legend especially as you perceive a human element buying into the folklore. As characters within find to their cost. It is heart-stopping and breath-taking. In an attempt to escape the man had taken shelter at the home of a friend, who hung out a horn on a long pole to distract the spirit. So it’s bravo to Elly Griffiths for hitting book 12 of the series featuring forensic archaeologist Dr Ruth Galloway and immediately taking Ruth right out of her comfort zone – literally. As The Lantern Man opens, Ruth is no longer living in Norfolk. She has a job at a Cambridge university college, lives in the city and has a new partner in the shape of Frank Barker, an American academic who is also something of a TV personality.

Each day we'll be sending you a selection of our top stories from across our county, as well as breaking news so you can be the first to know. Didn't you see the sign on the door saying that I was with a student, asks Ruth". "No, says Nelson, I haven't got time to read signs.". The loo in the waiting area had a sign on it saying 'Patient Toilet.' Well the WC must be the only thing around here not feeling frustrated. The story goes that Tom reached the size of a giant and was able to defeat “The Smeeth”, a particularly loathsome ogre in the area. DCI Harry Nelson and DI Judy Johnson are pleased that Ivor March has been found guilty of the murder of two young women. While Nelson believes he has killed at least two more women, March is still claiming his innocence of all the murders. However, he tells Nelson he will tell him where to find the other two bodies if Ruth Galloway can be involved in the forensic exhumation of the bodies.

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In a bid to get over her complicated relationship with DCI Harry Nelson of King’s Lynn CID and progress her career, forensic archaeologist, Dr Ruth Galloway, has left her beloved cottage on the Saltmarsh behind and with it the University of North Norfolk. Swapping the life that she was so content with for the dreaming spires of Cambridge and living with American historian, Dr Frank Barker, she is adjusting to teaching at St Jude’s College, having a partner and parenting her rapidly maturing nine-year-old daughter, Kate, with Nelson, now an hour away in North Norfolk. Meanwhile fifty year old DCI Harry Nelson is raising what he hopes will be his fourth and final child, two and a half year old George, after wife Michelle’s unexpected arrival, not that this does anything to lessen his silent and irrational fury at Ruth cohabiting with smarmy Frank. So much for the setting, what about the story? Well, someone has murdered several tall, blonde, bright young women. The court has convicted him of two murders. But what of the other unsolved disappearances. And… how many other tall, blonde, bright young women are going to be entangled by the culprit? Nelson’s daughter? Other people’s daughter’s? Or is it even a syndicate, who used to be an artistic group working together and calling themselves the lantern men. I even pegged the women for it at one point. And the convicted murderer draws Ruth into his maniacal maze, which is really not good for her, not at all. Nelson’s snarky side It’s enjoyable to make guesses, particularly when reading this mystery book series. This book had so many red herrings but they’re all presented in such a subtle manner. Ditto the extreme suspense. It seems to arise naturally including during many places in the story, not just the obvious ones. When the dig at the old pub reveals a surprise and the DNA evidence isn’t what Nelson had hoped, things really start to get complicated. Then, another young woman is found dead, and even Nelson has a nagging thought that March could be innocent, although that thought doesn’t linger long. And, of course, the mythic legends, which Nelson finds annoying and Ruth finds fascinating, rear their mysterious heads. This time it is the legend of the Lantern Men. Three of the men, including Ivor March, who had lived at Grey Walls had called themselves the Lantern Men, but contrary to the marsh legend of the Lantern Men leading people to their deaths, March claims that they saved young women who were lost. The dead women speak otherwise, but if March led the “Lantern Men,” is there now a copycat killer?

But despite the rise in academic prestige, Ruth’s aware that she’s putting great strain on her heart: not just leaving the coast, but also walking away from Detective Chief Inspector Harry Nelson, father of her nine-year-old daughter, but securely married and also a new father to a son with his wife. Though Ruth’s aware that she can’t win her daughter’s dad as her own partner under the circumstances, that doesn’t erase the powerful bond that Nelson and Ruth share.We are two years on from the end of the previous book. Ruth and Kate have moved to Cambridge where Ruth is a professor at one of the colleges. They are living with Frank, the American introduced to us in The Stone Circle. I quite liked him initially, but I started to see another side of him, not so likeable, in The Lantern Men. He really is not a good fit for Ruth. They are attracted to whistles echoing through the marshland and lonely travellers without protection. The legend of the Lantern Man, which finds its origin in the history of the Fens of East Anglia, has been referred to as an atmospheric ghost light. At times, local folklore believed it was another legendary creature, the will-o'-the-wisp. Realistically, this light was the product of combustible marsh gases. The boulder hit All Saints Church in the little village of Tilney in Norfolk, and this is indeed where Tom was buried.

Everything has changed for Dr Ruth Galloway. She has a new job, home and partner, and is no longer North Norfolk police's resident forensic archaeologist. That is, until convicted murderer Ivor March offers to make DCI Nelson a deal. Nelson was always sure that March killed more women than he was charged with. Now March confirms this, and offers to show Nelson where the other bodies are buried - but only if Ruth will do the digging. But this light was strange, it had a deadly presence that crept closer with each step the fisherman took. Kate might be a future Goodreads member. “It’s my reading journal,’ says Kate. ‘We don’t have to do it but I want to keep up to date.” In a 1900 copy of the Eastern Counties magazine a novel way of escaping their clutches is outlined for those who find themselves walking the Fens.

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I was happy that at the end there wasn’t a huge cliffhanger as there sometimes is. I do have some guesses about how book 13 might start. It’ll be fun, I’m sure. It’s going to be hard enough to wait until book 13 is published and available in the U.S. It will likely be available in the UK months before it is in the U.S. In our book group the British author Elly Griffiths has many fans, for both her Magic Men and Ruth Galloway series. So we were really happy to get enough copies of this to introduce her to people in our group who’d never read her books before. Everything has changed for Dr Ruth Galloway. She has a new job, home and partner, and is no longer North Norfolk police’s resident forensic archaeologist. That is, until convicted murderer Ivor March offers to make DCI Nelson a deal. Nelson was always sure that March killed more women than he was charged with. Now March confirms this, and offers to show Nelson where the other bodies are buried – but only if Ruth will do the digging. Ruth stands frozen with her hand on the car door. Ivor March wants her to be involved in the case. A serial killer not only knows her name but is requesting her assistance. Should she refuse? This isn’t her case, after all. She thinks of Frank’s words last night. ‘You’ve got a new team now.’ But, of course, deep down, she wants to do it. She wants to be the one to find the bodies.”