Thursday, March 19, 2020

The Lantern Men by Elly Griffiths: Reading Room Review



When your favorite series is as thrilling in book twelve as it was when it began, you know you have struck reading gold. The Lantern Men, #12 in the Ruth Galloway series, by Elly Griffiths is a book that both continues the great storytelling immersed in the mysterious, mythic salt marsh setting of Norfolk with its characters we’ve come to love and is a pivotal point of what the future holds. In other words, the murder mystery has its roots deliciously deep into the mythical connection of the Lantern Men of the marshes, and the always complicated relationships of characters sees some resolution. It is Ruth’s hour of deepest soul searching.

Change looms large in this new tale. Ruth has now been living with the American history scholar Frank and her daughter Kate in Cambridge for two years. Both Frank and Ruth are teaching at Oxford, and Ruth has rented out her house by the salt marshes in Norfolk. While she still sees her friends from Norfolk, she and Frank have carved out their own niche away from it. She is no longer the police expert engaged for cases that DCI Harry Nelson, Kate’s father, investigates for the North Norfolk Police Department. The most recent case she was not involved in was the serial murderer Ivor March, convicted of killing two women and suspected, especially by Nelson, of killing two more. It was Ruth’s former boss, Phil Trent, who was the forensic archeologist on call who dug up the bones in the garden of March’s girlfriend, the bones that proved to be two missing Norfolk women. But, a twist comes up in the Ivor March saga, that brings Ruth front and center again in her old police work. Nelson meets with March at March’s new prison accommodations, and March offers to reveal the location of the other two graves, but he will do so only if Dr. Ruth Galloway does the digging. Ruth feels as if she can’t refuse if it will mean that two more families will receive closure to their tormenting uncertainty. So, it’s back to her familiar stomping grounds to work with Nelson and his team, something she has missed since starting her new life.

The location that March gives to Ruth and Nelson is the garden of an abandoned pub, on the edge of the Cley Marshes. Ruth, who doesn’t know Ivor March, has wondered why he wanted her to do the dig. She doesn’t think she has any connection to him, but then she discovers that his ex-wife runs the writers and artists retreat, Grey Walls, where Ruth has just spent a week to finish her last book. The ex-wife, Crissy Martin, together with Ivor March’s current girlfriend and another former female resident at their retreat, are trying to get March out of jail, claiming he’s innocent. Ruth had heard of the Ivor March case and followed it, but she had no idea that the retreat in the fens was where March had lived with a group of men and women who all participated in different arts and the retreat in the early days of it. Ruth is further surprised that Crissy, whom she liked and even confided in, a rare thing for Ruth, during her week stay, is still connected to her ex-husband and the group of friends. However, only the gardener/artist John and Crissy remain to run the retreat now.

When the dig at the old pub reveals a surprise and the DNA evidence isn’t what Nelson had hoped, things really start to get complicated. Then, another young woman is found dead, and even Nelson has a nagging thought that March could be innocent, although that thought doesn’t linger long. And, of course, the mythic legends, which Nelson finds annoying and Ruth finds fascinating, rear their mysterious heads. This time it is the legend of the Lantern Men. Three of the men, including Ivor March, who had lived at Grey Walls had called themselves the Lantern Men, but contrary to the marsh legend of the Lantern Men leading people to their deaths, March claims that they saved young women who were lost. The dead women speak otherwise, but if March led the “Lantern Men,” is there now a copycat killer?

As with all the Ruth Galloway novels, readers are drawn to the whole cast of characters and their lives and relationships. The changes that Ruth has undergone in the two years since The Stone Circle, #11 in the series, carries over to other characters. Nelson is focusing on his two-year-old son George, but he misses Katie, his daughter with Ruth. DI Cloughie has left Norfolk and got his own patch at the Cambridgeshire CID, but he becomes involved in the Ivor March case, much to readers‘ delight. DI Judy Johnson is still in Norfolk and dealing with Tanya Fuller and her ambition to outshine Judy and everyone else. Of course, Judy has Cathbad, our favorite Druid to keep her calm and centered. A new member of the Norfolk Police is Tony Zhang, who promises to be a great replacement for Cloughie. Cathbad’s oldest child, Maddie, is gaining favor as a character, too, in her job as a journalist. Frank has achieved a major accomplishment in convincing Ruth to move to Cambridge, and he isn’t too pleased about her involvement in the Ivor March case and working with Nelson, but Ruth is still very much her own person. She’s changed where she lives, but there are limits to her compromises.

While I was reading The Lantern Men, I was leading a group discussion for a virtual book club on the first Ruth Galloway mystery, The Crossing Places. It was a fortuitous coincidence for me, as there are quite a few allusions to book one’s events and beginnings in The Lantern Men. The continuity was a serendipitous delight. And, reading both in such proximity allowed me to feel the full force of how much has changed and yet remained the same, especially the power of the salt marsh setting and its role in life and death. Elly Griffiths has given us another outstanding story in this world of which I cannot get enough.

4 comments:

  1. Sounds wonderful. Thank you. Must add to my list.

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    1. Triss, I think I say every book in this series is my favorite, but this one is a turning point for Ruth, so it is special. Hope you love as much as I did. Thanks for stopping by the blog.

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  2. How do I get my hands on the UK version? I don't want to wait until June for the US release.

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    1. Lyda, the easiest source would be Book Depository. Here's the link to The Lantern Men there. You might want to check on what their delivery schedule is now. https://www.bookdepository.com/Lantern-Men-Elly-Griffiths/9781787477537

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