📖 Book Review ~ The Last Remains by Elly Griffiths

 

Quercus
2023

Ruth Galloway #15

The discovery of a missing woman's bones forces Ruth and Nelson to finally confront their feelings for each other as they desperately work to exonerate one of their own.

When builders discover a human skeleton while renovating a café, they call in archaeologist Dr. Ruth Galloway, who is preoccupied with the threatened closure of her department and by her ever-complicated relationship with DCI Nelson. The bones turn out to be modern--the remains of Emily Pickering, a young archaeology student who went missing in 2002. Suspicion soon falls on Emily's Cambridge tutor and also on another archeology enthusiast who was part of the group gathered the weekend before she disappeared--Ruth's friend Cathbad.

As they investigate, Nelson and his team uncover a tangled web of relationships within the archaeology group and look for a link between them and the café where Emily's bones were found. Then, just when the team seem to be making progress, Cathbad disappears. The trail leads Ruth a to the Neolithic flint mines in Grimes Graves. The race is on, first to find Cathbad and then to exonerate him, but will Ruth and Nelson uncover the truth in time to save their friend?

📖 My Review...

I've followed this excellent crime series since the beginning and so it was with some sadness that I started The Last Remains as I knew it was the last book and even though the plot is as tight and sharp as ever there is an inevitable sense of closure.  Ruth Galloway is called in to investigate human remains which have been found during renovations to a local cafe. This discovery inevitably involves the police and once again Ruth and DCI Harry Nelson must work closely together but when the clues to the perpetrator lead to someone they know their loyalties are stretched to the limit.

There has been so much to enjoy in this series, not just the archaeological and police mysteries which have been brought to life with so much attention to detail but it is also in the character progression where the emotional involvement in the story really works. I've loved every one of the characters particularly Ruth, Nelson and Cathbad so it was lovely to have this trio feature so strongly in the last book, almost like we have come full circle. The loose ends which were finally tied off felt absolutely right and I finished the book with a real sense of satisfaction of a good story, well told.

I chose to listen to The Last Remains which was excellently narrated by Jane McDowell who has been the narrator for most of the series. 

About the Author

Elly Griffiths is the bestselling author of the Dr Ruth Galloway Mysteries and the Brighton Mysteries. She has won the CWA Dagger in the Library, has been shortlisted five times for the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year, and longlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger for The Lantern Men. Her new series featuring Detective Harbinder Kaur began with The Stranger Diaries, which was a Richard and Judy book club pick and won the Edgar Award for Best Novel in the USA. It was followed by The Postscript Murders, shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger and Bleeding Heart Yard. Elly has two grown-up children and lives near Brighton with her archaeologist husband.

@ellygriffiths #TheLastRemains

@QuercusBooks