Ruth's First Christmas Tree: A Ruth Galloway Christmas Story (Ruth Galloway Series)

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I always forget Ruth is a fictional character. I think it’s the first time (and I am quite “old”) that I experience this… Can’t wait for the next one ! All our trees are grown in sustainable forests,’ says Leaf. ‘Rainbow and I talk to them every day. They’re our friends. ’ He adds, rather more briskly, ‘That one’s twenty-five quid.’ Ruth looks at the tree. She can’t really see anything special about it – it’s green and pointy and spiky, that’s about it. She needs a tree. She has promised herself that she will make this the perfect Christmas for Kate. It’s Kate’s second Christmas. She didn’t really register the first one, being only a month old at the time but now she can recognize Santa Claus at a hundred paces and yesterday said ‘present’, very loudly and clearly. So she is on her way to becoming a typical product of the consumerist society. Well done, Ruth. A triumph for modern parenting. But this Christmas it won’t just be Ruth and Kate, because Ruth has also invited Max, her . . . What is Max? Her boyfriend? Surely it’s ridiculous to have a boyfriend at forty-one? Her partner? Sounds too official for a relationship that has, so far, encompassed two weekends and an Aborigine repatriation ceremony. Anyway, she doesn’t need a partner. She has Kate and her beloved cat, Flint. She has her job as a forensic archaeologist, her friends and a somewhat stressful relationship with Kate’s father, DCI Harry Nelson. She’s happy as she is. But why then is she going to so much trouble to do all the Christmassy things when usually her only concession to the festive season is watching the Dr Who special with a glass of white? This year she has put up her cards, bought an advent calendar and even arranged holly behind her picture frames. She has also bought a turkey (M & S, pre-stuffed), mince pies (ditto containing brandy and grated nutmeg) and a ton of sprouts. And now she is standing in the freezing cold debating the finer points of a Christmas tree. ‘I’ll take it,’ she says in answer to Leaf’s raised eyebrows. ‘Is it OK to collect it later? I’ve got some shopping to do.’ ‘Time has no meaning,’ replies Leaf, adding that he shuts at five.

Ruth Galloway Series by Elly Griffiths - Goodreads Ruth Galloway Series by Elly Griffiths - Goodreads

Yes,’ says Cathbad, ‘but that would have been a natural process, part of the cycle of nature. But for a piece of wood just to be lost like that, it’s all wrong. These were sacred timbers. You remember what Erik used to say? “Wood represents life; stone is death.”’ Ruth doesn’t argue because she is grateful to Cathbad for offering to babysit. Besides, she knows what he means. She will never forget her first sight of the henge, rising up out of the flat landscape like some prehistoric monster. Erik, the archaeologist in charge of the dig, had fallen to his knees in the centre of the circle. ‘Sacred ground,’ he had said. She remembers, too, Erik’s thoughts on wood and stone. ‘Our journey is from the flesh of the body to the wood of the coffin to the stone of the tomb.’ She shivers. She doesn’t want to talk about Erik, whose ghost still haunts her. ‘I hope Driffield feels better soon,’ she says. Crimes old and new come together in explosive fashion in The Outcast Dead ( reviewed here) – named after an annual service held in Norwich to commemorate those laid to rest in paupers’ graves. Ruth uncovers bones believed to belong to a notorious Victorian child murderess known as Mother Hook, hanged in 1867 at Norwich Castle for killing multiple children. Meanwhile, in modern day Norfolk a baby snatcher known as The Childminder is abducting young victims – and and after a child close to everyone involved disappears, the stakes couldn’t be higher. Set in the 1950 and 60s in (unsurprisingly) Brighton, this series begins with The Zig Zag Girl, published in 2014, with the most recent addition, The Midnight Hour, published in 2021. The books feature police officer Edgar Stephens and magician Max Mephisto and are high on period detail and humour as well as containing some masterful plot work. Well, let’s have a drink now,’ says Cathbad. ‘I’ve made some more mulled wine. Do you want some?’ ‘That would be lovely,’ says Ruth, sinking down on the sofa, still staring up at the tree. ‘And I’ve got something for you.’ She takes the piece of wood out of her bag. A team of archaeologists, investigating coastal erosion on the north Norfolk coast, unearth six bodies buried at the foot of a cliff. How long have they been there? What could have happened to them? Forensics expert Ruth Galloway and DCI Nelson are dra …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 besid … When builders renovating a café in King’s Lynn find a human skeleton behind a wall, they call for DCI Harry Nelson and Dr Ruth Galloway, Head of Archaeology at the nearby University of North Norfolk. Ruth is preoccupied with the threatened closure of h …

Ruth Galloway Novels - Elly Griffiths The Ruth Galloway Novels - Elly Griffiths

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, re … Book one in the series starts as it means to go on, with bones unearthed at the edge of a North Norfolk salt marsh. Are they recent or ancient? DCI Harry Nelson is desperate to know if they belong to a young girl who went missing 10 years ago, and he calls upon the expertise of Dr Ruth Galloway, an academic whose speciality is forensic archeology. Thus begins the relationship between the pair. It is a faltering start, with Ruth and Nelson coming at life from two very different angles – he a bluff northern family man, she a solitary and bookish type who lives in a tiny cottage out on the marshes. But their work is about to draw them inextricably closer. In a chilling entry to the award-winning Ruth Galloway series, she and DCI Nelson are haunted by a ghost from their past, just as their future lands on shaky ground.Until her daughter was born, forensic archaeologist Ruth Galloway didn’t do Christmas, but now that Kate is a year old, she wants it to be special. The tenth book in the Dr Ruth Galloway series sees Ruth wanting to escape from Norfolk and from her complicated relationship with DCI Nelson, at least for a while. Her chance arrives with an invitation from Dr Angelo Morelli at Rome University. Morell … Ruth’s old friend Dan Golding dies in a house fire. But before he died Dan wrote to Ruth telling her that he had made a ground-breaking archaeological discovery. Could this find be linked to his death and who are the sinister neo-Nazi group who were th … When Ruth Galloway arrives to supervise the opening of a coffin containing the bones of a medieval bishop, she finds the museum’s curator lying dead on the floor. Soon after, the museum’s wealthy owner is also found dead, in his stables. The service of the Outcast Dead is held annually in Norwich commemorating the bodies in the paupers' graves. This year's proceedings hold special interest for forensic archaeologist Ruth Galloway, who has just unearthed the notorious Mother Hook, han...

Elly Griffiths - Fantastic Fiction Elly Griffiths - Fantastic Fiction

From the latest Scandinavian serial killer to Golden Age detective stories, we love our crime novels! Elly Griffiths was born in London in 1963. Her first crime novel The Crossing Places is set on the Norfolk coast where she spent holidays as a child and where her aunt still lives. Her interest in archaeology comes from her husband, Andrew, who gave up his city job to retrain as an archaeologist. She lives in Brighton, on the south coast of England, with her husband and two children. 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 a …

In the morning the snow has gone but the wind is still howling around the house, blowing the letter box inwards and sending Flint flying through his cat flap in a ball of outraged fluff. In the bleak midwinter, thinks Ruth, frosty winds made moan. What a dismal carol that is. She is planning a day of domestic goddessery. She doesn’t have to go into work and she wants to have the house all ready for Max’s arrival tomorrow. She doesn’t know exactly when he is coming, Max just said ‘Christmas Eve morning’, but she doesn’t want to get caught unprepared. Also she doesn’t think she’ll feel like housework tomorrow, after a late night at Shona and Phil’s party. No, Max must find a house smelling of pine needles and clean linen, with logs on the fire and gifts on the tree. Damn, now she’s got that Cliff Richard song on her brain. Anyway, gifts on the tree are out of the question now. Even so, some degree of Christmas spirit is still achievable. She decides to make a list. Over breakfast, spooning porridge into Kate and trying to keep Flint off the table, she writes: