The Locked Room by Elly Griffiths

 Pandemic lockdowns have Ruth Galloway feeling isolated from everyone but a new neighbor—until Nelson comes calling, investigating a decades-long string of murder-suicides that’s looming ever closer.

Three years after her mother’s death, Ruth is finally sorting through her things when she finds a curious relic: a decades-old photograph of her own Norfolk cottage—before she lived there—with a peculiar inscription on the back. Ruth returns to the cot­tage to uncover its meaning as Norfolk’s first cases of Covid-19 make headlines, leaving her and Kate to shelter in place there. They struggle to stave off isolation by clapping for frontline workers each evening and befriending a kind neighbor, Zoe, from a distance.

Meanwhile, Nelson is investigating a series of deaths of women that may or may not be suicide. When he links a case to an archaeological dis­covery, he breaks curfew to visit Ruth and enlist her help. But the further Nelson investigates the deaths, the closer he gets to Ruth’s isolated cot­tage—until Ruth, Zoe, and Kate all go missing, and Nelson is left scrambling to find them before it’s too late.

Pick up your copy here...                                                                                                                                    The Locked Room (Ruth Galloway Mysteries): Griffiths, Elly: 9780358671398: Amazon.com: Books

Thank you for visiting my Amazon author page! I'm the author of two crime series, the Dr Ruth Galloway books and the Brighton Mysteries. Last year I also published a stand-alone, The Stranger Diaries, and a children's book, A Girl Called Justice. I have previously written books under my real name, Domenica de Rosa (I know it sounds made up).

The Ruth books are set in Norfolk, a place I know well from childhood. It was a chance remark of my husband's that gave me the idea for the first in the series, The Crossing Places. We were crossing Titchwell Marsh in North Norfolk when Andy (an archaeologist) mentioned that prehistoric people thought that marshland was sacred ground. Because it's neither land nor sea, but something in-between, they saw it as a bridge to the afterlife; neither land nor sea, neither life nor death. In that moment, I saw Dr Ruth Galloway walking towards me out of the mist...

I live near Brighton with Andy. We have two grown-up children. I write in a garden shed accompanied by my cat, Gus.

My Thoughts...

If you are looking for a mystery then I have found it for you. If you don't want to read about covid as many people don't then pass this one by. But if you are looking for a mystery add this one to your to be read stack.

This was my first Ruth Galloway mystery and I want to go back and read them all.

The Mary Reader received this book from the publisher for review. A favorable review was not required, and all views expressed are our own.