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Sunday December 31, 2023
Books in December
- The Janus Stone, The House at Sea's End, and A Room Full of Bones
by Elly Griffiths [Read by Jane McDowell]
Another three installments following the life and times of Dr Ruth Galloway, forensic archaeologist at North Norfolk University. Times have changed for our heroine - she is now the Mother of a little girl, which occupies most of her thoughts and hours either at work or home. Her friendship with Harry continues, engendering not a little gossip and rumour from their colleagues.
Rather like the Kathy Reichs books (although not actually very similar to them in style), all the plots inevitably involve old bones, and murder (ancient and modern):
In The Janus Stone, the bones of a child are found under a modern doorway during a dig prior to refurbishment; in The House at Sea's End, bones are revealed through coastal erosion of what was once a domestic garden; and, in A Room Full of Bones, there is a protest movement to repatriate indigenous ancestor bones removed from their original burial grounds in less enlightened times.
Of these particular stories, I liked The House at Sea's End the best - basically, I'm a sucker for anything involving the word "sea". The mystery dated from WW2 and gave a new perspective on the "Home Guard" - not quite as it was presented in Dad's Army! These days I think it's hard to really remember that these were men trained to protect England as a last stand - the threat of the invasion on that coastline was very real, which is pretty evident even in the TV comedy.
Posted by Christina at 3:31 PM. Category: Books of the Month
