The House at Sea's End (2011)

"Fresh Meat" by Victoria Janssen for Criminal Element

The House at Sea’s End is the first Elly Griffiths novel I have read; it’s third in a series about Ruth Galloway, a forensic archaeologist from the University of North Norfolk. For those who worry about reading in order, there are enough references to Galloway’s previous relationship with DCI Harry Nelson that the plot’s easily comprehensible without reading the earlier books in the series. However, I think reading the series in order would definitely have rewards, as the character relationships are complex, and it’s obvious they’ve been built steadily as the series progresses.

(Read the rest at: http://www.criminalelement.com/blogs/2012/01/fresh-meat-the-house-at-seas-end-by... )

Elly Griffith's Ruth Galloway series has been compared to Kathy Reichs' books, although I like Ruth much better than Temperance Brennan. Ruth is middle-aged and overweight, an academic, a forensic archaeologist with a precocious one year old daughter (Kate) and no husband. The only reason she's excited to be involved with police work is her attraction to Kate's father Harry Nelson, who is married to a drop-dead gorgeous woman he's still in love with. The Norfolk England setting in the salt-marshes is fantastic, the range of characters from professors, to detectives, to druids, to English aristocracy, makes for a wonderful blend of motives, raising red-herrings galore as Ruth and Nelson try to ascertain the origin of six skeletons unearthed on a ragged cliff overlooking the sea. Were they German soldiers? Did they invade during World War II? How did they come to be buried in this spot? Great suspense, wonderful human interest, and you bet I'm looking forward to the next one because she has a 5th coming out later this year! ( )

Ostensibly The House at Seas End is about the discovery of the bones of six people in an isolated cove on the Norfolk coast, just beneath the house of the local MP whose house is, literally, crumbling into the sea. The bones are old but not ancient, less than one one hundred years old on first inspection, and it transpires they are likely of German origin given the chemicals found within them. These facts fit in with the war-time history of the area. It soon becomes clear that someone doesn’t want the secret of the bones revealed when a journalist who is investigating the find is found dead so official investigators have two mysteries to solve.

But for me the book is less about all this than it is about people. Funny, fearful, loving, sad, conflicted, imperfect ordinary, lovable people. Our heroine Ruth Galloway is a forensic archaeologist with the fictional North Norfolk University and is involved at the outset with the dating of and investigation into the discovery of the bones. This is her first big task, other than routine lecturing duties, since she came back to work from maternity leave and she is struggling with the demands of work and learning how to look after her new baby. Being Ruth she deals with it, at least in part, via an ever-present witty, self-deprecating internal monologue. Above this Ruth’s charm is her credibility: her conflicting hopes for her future and the haphazard way she deals with the strangeness her life throws up make her instinctively likable and someone who ‘the average person’ can identify with.

The hero of the novel, who is taking on an increasingly larger role as the series progresses, is DCI Harry Nelson, the main policeman who Ruth has worked with in all the investigations with which she has been involved. Harry is married to a glamorous hairdresser and in some ways has nothing in common with the overweight, unglamorous Ruth. However they share intellectual interests and they work together in a very complementary way. Harry is perhaps less likable for some, he is very sarcastic (which I happen to love) and his personal choices are not always to be admired but once again I think he’s a very realistic character and I enjoy him almost as much as Ruth.

Some of the minor characters in the series are taking shape nicely too, my favourite of these is the lab worker and practicing Pagan, Cathbad who seems to have appointed himself some kind of personal guardian for the Galloway family. He brings a hint of spirituality to the novel but he’s also quite practical at times and it’s rather delightful watching the relationship between him and Harry develop into something approaching friendship, regardless of how unlikely this might seem to both of them.

If you’re looking for complicated, extremely suspenseful crime fiction you’ll need to look elsewhere. The war-time mystery was pretty straight-forward, though unraveled well, and even the present-day intrigue was be fairly easily solved, though there was misdirection and we had a few tense moments worrying about key characters. The plot itself and the motivations are credible though, even if not terribly taxing for die-hard crime fiction fans. Griffiths has continued giving the books a sense of crime fiction history too, this time by incorporating a simple code to be broken in the form of a list of popular mystery novels (on a note of the “I think publishing might be in trouble” kind I can’t help but make a comment about the proofreading done here though, Omar Yuseff is the protagonist of The Fourth Assassin which was written by Matt Rees).

I read The House at Seas End in a single day, cobbling time from chores and family obligations, because I couldn’t not do so. I wanted to savour it slowly and eek out the experience of being surrounded by enjoyable, interesting people but in the end I could not stop until I got to the very end. I am a little sad that I’ll probably have to wait a whole year for another installment but I’m very happy that the book lived up to its predecessors and my own anticipation. ( )

This time bones are found that date back to WWII. While aiding the police investigation looking for relatives of the Home Guard, Ruth finds herself talking to townspeople while trying to juggle work, home life, Kate’s father, babysitting issues and the unexpected visit of an old friend after returning to work from maternity leave. Not quite as good as the first two in the series. ( )

Well worth reading - a very good mystery that poses a lot of moral questions, as does Ruth Galloway's personal situation and that of several of her friends. ( )