Clearly, a book that
was recently published does not really qualify for FFB. Yet, I have been doing
this series as reviews for FFB since I started back in December of 2015.
Therefore, I am doing it again this week with The Dark Angel: A Ruth Galloway Mystery by Elly Griffiths. Make
sure you check out the full list of reading suggestions over at Patti Abbott’s blog.
It is the middle of August as The
Dark Angel: A Ruth Galloway Mystery begins and almost everyone in Dr.
Ruth Galloway’s world is a bit out of sorts for various reasons. Watching
Clough and Cassandra become Mr. and Mrs. Blackstock-Clough was part joyous and
part sad as it reinforced her status with Nelson. There just isn’t a wedded
future for them, as she knows, but that fact stings a bit more right
now. What she needs is a bit of a break before the term starts in
September and that is when Professor Angelo Morelli calls from Italy.
The professor would like Dr.
Ruth to come to Italy and examine some bones he has uncovered in the Liri
Valley, not far from Rome. He offers her and her daughter, Kate, the use of an
apartment in a remote hilltop village. It is Ruth’s chance to get away from Norfolk
and the events of recent months. It will be her first foreign holiday in years
as well as the first ever for her daughter Kate.
Before long she and Kate are on
their way to Italy along with her friend, Shona, and her son, Louis. Shona
could also use a break from boyfriend Phil (Ruth’s department chair) and the
kids can play together and have a blast. Assuming the kids can get along and
Louis does not resume his fondness for hitting the two years older Kate. Two
weeks in Italy should be fun and it should not make much time out of the
holiday to look at the bones.
But, things go sideways almost
from their arrival in Italy when graffiti on their doorstep warns them to go
away. What that has to do with the strong World War II resistance movement in
the local area decades ago, a modern day murder, and more is at work at the heart
of The
Dark Angel: A Ruth Galloway Mystery.
As usual in this series, the personal
lives of numerous secondary characters supply various additional subplots that are
rich in complexity, details, and nuance, and play their roles to further
support and enhance the main plot of this novel which is the tenth of the
series. Set in late summer 2015, archeology remains a theme in this novel and
is sued to provide historical details that further embellish the discussions of
the past as well as the societal backdrop of today.
Once again Elly Griffiths has
spun a large web of characters, events, and complexity to enthrall the reader
from the first page. A series that should be read in order and that is
certainly the case here in The Dark Angel: A Ruth Galloway Mystery
as this is a turning point book. For several characters, things will never be
the same and there will be repercussions of that. A very good read, as is the
entire series, The Dark Angel: A Ruth Galloway Mystery is strongly recommended.
The books,
in order, and my reviews:
The Dark Angel: A Ruth Galloway Mystery
Elly Griffiths
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
May 15, 2018
ISBN# 978-0-544-75032-6
Hardback (currently available in eBook
and audio formats as well)
357 Pages
$27.00
Material supplied by
the good folks of the Dallas Public Library System.
Kevin R. Tipple ©2018
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