The Last Remains by Elly Griffiths
What's It About?
In the anticipated finale to the Ruth Galloway series, Dr. Galloway and DCI Nelson return with their team to solve a 20-year-old cold case to absolve their friend from suspicion.The Last Remains (Mariner Books) will rightfully jump to the top of many mystery lovers’ TBRN (to be read now!!) piles. It is purportedly the 16th and final book in Elly Griffith’s exciting and addictive series about Ruth Galloway, tenured college professor, forensic archeologist and crime solver who routinely aids the Norfolk police in active murder investigations and cold cases. Archaeological digs have yielded centuries old ancient graves and artifacts — and served as dumping grounds for more recent corpses.
I steadfastly refuse to believe this is the absolute end. I doubt the author fully believes her fans will take this threat seriously. Ruth, her extended family and friends, will doubtlessly rattle around Griffiths’ brain and clamor for more attention.
How It All Began
The series debuted in 2009 with The Crossing Places which first brought Detective Chief Inspector (DCI) Harry Nelson and Dr. Galloway together when a child’s bones were found on a pre-historic site. It won the Mary Higgins Clark Award and in 2022 was reissued in a special commemorative edition. The author had already published four novels under her own name, Domenica de Rosa, beginning with The Italian Quarter in 2004. She chose the pseudonym Elly Griffiths as her “crime fiction name.”
While on holiday in Norfolk with her archeologist husband and their two children, Griffiths and her family visited the Titchwell Marsh Nature Preserve. It’s a starkly beautiful bird watchers paradise some find to be a bleak, foreboding terrain where the sea meets the sky. Her husband chanced to mention these marshes were considered a sacred land and in that instant, the plot and protagonist suddenly appeared, fully imagined and soon to be written.
Ruth Galloway’s friend and another central, recurring character, Cathbad, the druid formerly known as Michael Malone, believes the marshland is a bridge between life and death — a highly spiritual place. Ruth and her daughter Kate, his goddaughter — whom Cathbad calls “Hecate” after a Greek Goddess associated with moonlight, magic and crossroads — dwell here in a remote cottage with their now ancient cat, Flint.
Intriguing Characters
Elly Griffith’s works are compulsively readable — carefully plotted with intriguing, quirky and relatable characters.
Ruth Galloway was in her mid-thirties when the series began 14 years ago — unconcerned about fashion, self-described as being a little out-of-shape and more focused on work than her social life. Since becoming a mother to Kate, who is 12 going on 20, her hair has a few gray strands among the brown. She still wears comfortable jeans or slacks, blazers and “trainers” (athletic shoes), but is more concerned with providing regular meals, monitoring computer time and homework, and generally being a good parent. She is now Head of the Archaeology Department at the University of North Norfolk, a published author of three books, and has been featured on television.
Her relationship with Kate’s father, the gruff but tender-hearted DCI Nelson, remains complicated, but they were nearly inseparable during the Covid pandemic. There is hope for a future together as his two daughters are nearly fully fledged and at long last he is separated from his wife, the ever glamorous Michelle. He is however, actively engaged in his young son George’s upbringing and his family is fully aware of Ruth and Kate.
Cold Case Hits Close to Home
The Last Remains begins with a brief prologue.
A small group of archeology students, their Cambridge University tutor, and enthusiasts including Cathbad gather around a bonfire on Palm Sunday in 2002 after a weekend of exploring Neolithic flint mines known as Grime’s Graves dug over 4,600 years ago. This heritage site, the only flint mines open to visitors, consists of over 400 hollows in the ground marking the location of the former mine shafts dug into chalk. One excavated shaft in the exhibition area allows visitors, accompanied by a guide, to don helmets and descend approximately 117 feet down a ladder to see the remaining flint.
One of the star archeology students, Emily Pickering, disappeared after the weekend.
Nearly 20 years later, a building contractor hired to renovate a Victorian era café removes a basement brick wall and discovers concealed skeletal remains. DCI Nelson and his team are summoned to investigate with Dr. Galloway to provide the forensic analysis. It’s immediately apparent to her the bones are of a young woman soon confirmed to be the missing student Emily Pickering.
They need to solve this cold case and remove any suspicion of Cathbad’s involvement since he once knew the girl intimately. During the course of the investigation, he suddenly vanishes. His family and friends are deeply concerned as Cathbad nearly died from the Covid-19 virus and is still suffering long-term side effects. He claims Nelson brought him back from beyond the veil.
The case serves as a distraction for Ruth from her responsibilities with the university; but then it’s announced that due to lower enrollments and budget cuts, the Archeology Department may be eliminated at the University of North Norfolk. She has tenure and could remain in some to-be-determined capacity or easily be hired by another university — whether in England or abroad — but her colleagues’ positions would be eliminated. A massive campaign to publicize the importance of their work is soon underway.
The Last Remains ends with the resolution of a twenty-year-old cold case and many ends tied up neatly in presumably “happily ever after bows,” but as stated before, fans will hunger for more from the author.
Remarkable Writer, Addictive Books!
The beloved Ruth Galloway books are written in chronological order with each novel building on the previous and best enjoyed in the order they were written. Additional details and backstories are enhanced for major and minor characters who have become a familiar and well-developed fictional family for readers who care passionately about their well-being and outcomes. If someone is short on time, each book would work as a standalone novel, but getting hooked on this series is almost inevitable.
If The Last Remains is the finale, it will give the author more time to write additional novels such as the post-WWII based series, The Brighton Mysteries, the YA Justice Jones mystery novels, and one can hope for another work featuring DI Harbinder Kaur from Bleeding Heart Yard.
Elly Griffiths was awarded the prestigious Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) Dagger in the Library for her collected works in 2016. The Stranger Diaries, her first stand-alone novel, won the Edgar Award for Best Novel in 2020. The following year, The Postscript Murders, was shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger.
My hope is that the Ruth Galloway books will become the basis for a well-cast and imaginatively scripted long-running British television series. It would be a surefire hit nearly guaranteed if Elly Griffiths were hired to write the screenplays or at least consult on content.
About Elly Griffiths:
Elly Griffiths is the author of the Ruth Galloway and Brighton mystery series, as well as the standalone novels The Stranger Diaries, winner of the Edgar Award for Best Novel, and The Postscript Murders. She is the recipient of the CWA Dagger in the Library Award and the Mary Higgins Clark Award. She earned a master’s degree in Victorian literature and subsequently worked in the publishing industry as an editorial director. She lives in Brighton, England.
