Ruth Galloway
13 primary works • 16 total works
Book 1
Start right here! Discover the Dr Ruth Galloway Mysteries and become obsessed with one of the most popular crime series in Britain.
'Galloway now seems as real as Marple and Morse' The Times
'I've never before read a crime novel in which archaeology and detection blend as successfully as in The Crossing Places' Shots
Dr Ruth Galloway is called in when a child's bones are discovered near a prehistoric site on the north Norfolk salt marshes. Are they the remains of a local girl who disappeared ten years earlier - or are the bones much older?
DCI Harry Nelson refuses to give up the hunt for the missing girl. Since she vanished, someone has been sending him creepy anonymous notes about ritual sacrifice. He knows that Ruth's expertise and experience could help him finally to put this case to rest.
But when a second child goes missing, Ruth finds herself in danger from a killer who knows she's getting ever closer to the truth.
'Captivating! A quick, thrilling read that ends making you want to read Book 2 immediately!' 5* READER REVIEW
'I really enjoyed this book, the story kept me gripped to the end! Would definitely recommend it' 5* READER REVIEW
'Ruth is such an empathetic character, clever and warm yet she has human weaknesses' 5* READER REVIEW
'I envy those coming of the Ruth Galloway series by Elly Griffiths. They are in for a total treat' 5* READER REVIEW
'Atmospheric and character-driven, I'd no sooner finished this first book in the Dr Ruth Galloway series than I was reaching for the second' 5* READER REVIEW
Book 2
A gruesome discovery at an old children's home lays bare terrible secret's from Norwich's past in the second gripping mystery for Dr Ruth Galloway.
'The setting is enticingly atmospheric . . . a really intelligent murder story' Independent
Dr Ruth Galloway's forensic skills are called upon when builders, demolishing an old house in Norwich, uncover the bones of a child - minus the skull - beneath a doorway. Is it some ritual sacrifice or just plain straightforward murder? Ruth links up with DCI Harry Nelson to investigate.
The house was once a children's home. Nelson traces the Catholic priest who used to run the place. He tells him that two children did go missing forty years before - a boy and a girl. They were never found.
When carbon dating proves that the child's bones predate the home and relate to a time when the house was privately owned, Ruth is drawn ever more deeply into the case. But as spring turns into summer it becomes clear that someone is desperate to put her off the scent by frightening her to death...
Book 3
Book 4
It is Halloween night in King's Lynn, and Dr Ruth Galloway is attending a strange event at the local history museum - the opening of a coffin containing the bones of a medieval bishop. But what Ruth finds is the body of the museum's curator lying beside the coffin.
Soon the museum's wealthy owner lies dead in his stables too. These two deaths could be from natural causes but when he is called in to investigate, DCI Harry Nelson isn't convinced, and it is only a matter of time before Ruth and Nelson cross paths once more.
When threatening letters come to light, events take an even more sinister turn. But as Ruth's friends become involved, where will her loyalties lie? As her convictions are tested, she and Nelson must discover how Aboriginal skulls, drug smuggling and the mystery of The Dreaming may hold the answer to these deaths, and their own survival.
Book 5
Book 6
Book 7
When a bullet-ridden body is unearthed from a buried WWII plane, Dr Ruth Galloway must find out who the victim was - and who put him there.
Norfolk is experiencing a July heatwave when a construction crew unearths a macabre discovery - a buried WWII plane with the pilot still inside. Forensic archaeologist Ruth Galloway quickly realizes that the skeleton couldn't possibly be the pilot, and DNA tests identify the man as Fred Blackstock, a local aristocrat who had been reported dead at sea. When the remaining members of the Blackstock family learn about the discovery, they seem strangely frightened by the news.
Events are further complicated by a TV company that wants to make a film about Norfolk's deserted air force bases, the so-called Ghost Fields, which have been partially converted into a pig farm run by one of the younger Blackstocks. As production begins, Ruth notices a mysterious man lurking close to the Blackstocks' family home.
As the biggest storm Norfolk has seen in decades brews in the distance, human bones are found on the family's pig farm. Can the team outrace a looming flood to find a killer?
Book 8
The murder of women priests in the shrine town of Walsingham sucks Dr Ruth Galloway into an unholy investigation.
When Ruth's friend Cathbad sees a vision of the Virgin Mary, in a white gown and blue cloak, in the graveyard next to the cottage he is house-sitting, he takes it in his stride. Walsingham has strong connections to Mary, and Cathbad is a druid after all; visions come with the job. But when the body of a woman in a blue dressing-gown is found dead the next day in a nearby ditch, it is clear Cathbad's vision was all too human, and that a horrible crime has been committed. DCI Nelson and his team are called in for the murder investigation, and soon establish that the dead woman was a recovering addict being treated at a nearby private hospital.
Ruth, a devout atheist, has managed to avoid Walsingham during her seventeen years in Norfolk. But then an old university friend, Hilary Smithson, asks to meet her in the village, and Ruth is amazed to discover that her friend is now a priest. Hilary has been receiving vitriolic anonymous letters targeting women priests - letters containing references to local archaeology and a striking phrase about a woman 'clad in blue, weeping for the world'.
Then another woman is murdered - a priest.
As Walsingham prepares for its annual Easter re-enactment of the Crucifixion, the race is on to unmask the killer before they strike again...
Book 9
'One of my favourite current crime series . . . a pleasure from start to finish' Val McDermid
'A five-star thriller' Daily Express
WINNER OF THE 2016 CWA DAGGER IN THE LIBRARY. Boiled human bones have been found in Norwich's web of underground tunnels. When Dr Ruth Galloway discovers they were recently buried, DCI Nelson has a murder inquiry on his hands. The boiling might have been just a medieval curiosity - now it suggests a much more sinister purpose.
Meanwhile, DS Judy Johnson is investigating the disappearance of a local rough sleeper. The only trace of her is the rumour that she's gone 'underground'. This might be a figure of speech, but with the discovery of the bones and the rumours both Ruth and the police have heard that the network of old chalk-mining tunnels under Norwich is home to a vast community of rough sleepers, the clues point in only one direction. Local academic Martin Kellerman knows all about the tunnels and their history - but can his assertions of cannibalism and ritual killing possibly be true?
As the weather gets hotter, tensions rise. A local woman goes missing and the police are under attack. Ruth and Nelson must unravel the dark secrets of The Underground and discover just what gruesome secrets lurk at its heart - before it claims another victim.
Book 10
THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
'My favourite current crime series' Val McDermid
Dr Ruth Galloway is flattered when she receives a letter from Italian archaeologist Dr Angelo Morelli, asking for her help. He's discovered a group of bones in a tiny hilltop village near Rome but doesn't know what to make of them. It's years since Ruth has had a holiday, and even a working holiday to Italy is very welcome!
So Ruth travels to Castello degli Angeli, accompanied by her daughter Kate and friend Shona. In the town she finds a baffling Roman mystery and a dark secret involving the war years and the Resistance. To her amazement she also soon finds Harry Nelson, with Cathbad in tow. But there is no time to overcome their mutual shock - the ancient bones spark a modern murder, and Ruth must discover what secrets there are in Castello degli Angeli that someone would kill to protect
Book 11
'My favourite series' Val McDermid
DCI Nelson has been receiving threatening letters telling him to 'go to the stone circle and rescue the innocent who is buried there'. He is shaken, not only because children are very much on his mind, with Michelle's baby due to be born, but because although the letters are anonymous, they are somehow familiar. They read like the letters that first drew him into the case of The Crossing Places, and to Ruth. But the author of those letters is dead. Or are they?
Meanwhile Ruth is working on a dig in the Saltmarsh - another henge, known by the archaeologists as the stone circle - trying not to think about the baby. Then bones are found on the site, and identified as those of Margaret Lacey, a twelve-year-old girl who disappeared thirty years ago.
As the Margaret Lacey case progresses, more and more aspects of it begin to hark back to that first case of The Crossing Places, and to Scarlett Henderson, the girl Nelson couldn't save. The past is reaching out for Ruth and Nelson, and its grip is deadly.
Book 12
ACCLAIMED AND BESTSELLING REGIONAL CRIME FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE STRANGER DIARIES
'My favourite current series' Val McDermid
'Ruth Galloway is one of the most engaging characters in modern crime fiction' Kate Mosse
'Elly Griffiths writes with a sharp, smart eye and great elegance' Peter James
Everything has changed for Dr Ruth Galloway.
She has a new job, home and partner, and is no longer North Norfolk police's resident forensic archaeologist. That is, until convicted murderer Ivor March offers to make DCI Nelson a deal. Nelson was always sure that March killed more women than he was charged with. Now March confirms this, and offers to show Nelson where the other bodies are buried - but only if Ruth will do the digging.
Curious, but wary, Ruth agrees. March tells Ruth that he killed four more women and that their bodies are buried near a village bordering the fens, said to be haunted by the Lantern Men, mysterious figures holding lights that lure travellers to their deaths.
Is Ivor March himself a lantern man, luring Ruth back to Norfolk? What is his plan, and why is she so crucial to it? And are the killings really over?
Book 13
'SET IN DIVINE NORTH NORFOLK. INTENSELY ATMOSPHERIC AND GREAT' India Knight
Dr Ruth Galloway returns to the moody and beautiful landscape of North Norfolk to confront another killer. A devastating new case for our favourite forensic archaeologist in this acclaimed and bestselling crime series.
The Night Hawks, a group of metal detectorists, are searching for buried treasure when they find a body on the beach in North Norfolk. At first Nelson thinks that the dead man might be an asylum seeker but he turns out to be a local boy, Jem Taylor, recently released from prison. Ruth is more interested in the treasure, a hoard of Bronze Age weapons. Nelson at first thinks that Taylor's death is accidental drowning, but a second death suggests murder.
Nelson is called to an apparent murder-suicide of a couple at the isolated Black Dog Farm. Local legend talks of the Black Shuck, a spectral hound that appears to people before they die. Nelson ignores this, even when the owner's suicide note includes the line, 'He's buried in the garden.' Ruth excavates and finds the body of a giant dog.
All roads lead back to this farm in the middle of nowhere, but the place spells serious danger for anyone who goes near. Ruth doesn't scare easily. Not until she finds herself at Black Dog Farm ...
Books 1-3
Ruth Galloway and DCI Nelson are on the hunt for a murderer when Covid rears its ugly head. But can they find the killer despite lockdown?
'GALLOWAY NOW SEEMS AS REAL AS MARPLE AND MORSE' The Times
'SET IN DIVINE NORTH NORFOLK. INTENSELY ATMOSPHERIC AND GREAT' India Knight
Ruth is in London clearing out her mother's belongings when she makes a surprising discovery: a photograph of her Norfolk cottage taken before Ruth lived there. Her mother always hated the cottage, so why does she have a picture of the place? The only clue is written on the back of the photo: Dawn, 1963.
Ruth returns to Norfolk determined to solve the mystery, but then Covid rears its ugly head. Ruth and her daughter are locked down in their cottage, attempting to continue with work and home-schooling. Happily, the house next door is rented by a nice woman called Zoe, who they become friendly with while standing on their doorsteps clapping for carers.
Nelson, meanwhile, is investigating a series of deaths of women that may or may not be suicide. When he links the deaths to an archaeological discovery, he breaks curfew to visit the cottage where he finds Ruth chatting to her neighbour whom he remembers as a carer who was once tried for murdering her employer.
Only then her name wasn't Zoe. It was Dawn.
Ruth and DCI Nelson are working on a murder case in which their friend Cathbad emerges as the prime suspect. Can they uncover the truth in time to save him?
'Galloway now seems as real as Marple and Morse' The Times
When builders renovating a café in King's Lynn unearth a human skeleton, they call for DCI Harry Nelson and Dr Ruth Galloway, Head of Archaeology at the University of North Norfolk. Ruth is preoccupied with the threatened closure of her department and by her ever-complicated relationship with Nelson.
The bones are identified as those of Emily Pickering, an archaeology student who went missing in the 1990s. Emily attended a course run by her Cambridge tutor. Suspicion falls on him and on another course member - Ruth's friend Cathbad, who is still frail following his near death from Covid. As they investigate, Nelson and his team uncover a tangled web of relationships within the student group and the adults leading them. Then, just when the team seem to be making progress, Cathbad disappears.
The trail leads Ruth and Nelson to the Neolithic flint mines in Grime's Graves. The race is on, first to find Cathbad and then to exonerate him, but will Ruth and Nelson uncover the truth in time to save their friend?
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Praise for The Last Remains
'One of our very best writers. Bravo!' The Times
'A great pleasure to read' 5* Reader Review
'Typically intriguing' Sunday Times
'Couldn't put it down. Great characters, great plot' 5* Reader Review
'One of Ruth's best investigations' Belfast Telegraph
'Kept you guessing until the very end' 5* Reader Review