Wednesday, May 27, 2015

The Ghost Fields, by Elly Griffiths

I always enjoy a Ruth Galloway novel, that's because Elly Griffiths is a superb author. The characters are always wonderfully developed, easy to get to know and yet they have a depth to them that you only get as you read story after story. Each new novel brings us even more information about characters that builds on your love or hate for them.

In this particular novel we find Ruth working a dig at what they believe will turn out to be a Bronze Age Burial Site. They have discovered one body and believe that there will be more.

While there on her dig another digger, this one a workman with a bulldozer uncovers a World War II plane and frighteningly enough finds the pilot still in the cockpit. That gives him quite a fright. He stops his work and contacts the authorities. Inspector Nelson is one of those to respond. He realizes that this is an unusual find since the plane is about 70 years old and yet the pilot still seems well preserved. As such he calls on Ruth to come take a look and give them an opinion.

Ruth's opinion is that the body is to well preserved to have been in this plane the whole time, because the soil conditions would not favor the way the body has been preserved. This brings on some questions about who the pilot is, how did he get here, why does he seem well preserved, etc.

The story evolves into quite the "who done it" murder mystery. I won't give away a lot of the plot as the fun in reading a Ruth Galloway novel is the building of the story. But lets just say that the pilot wasn't the pilot of that plane. Lets say he wasn't even suppose to be near that type of plane. He was also supposed to have died at sea in a larger plane crash. BUT, this plane and his body are found near the family Estate in Norfolk which brings all kinds of issues to the surface.

This will not be the only murder that they will end up investigating. It will not be easy to figure out who all the players are, and to top it off Ruth's old friend Frank, will pop back into the scene to again film a TV show about the dig, the find and about Ruth.

All in all you have several Romantic Stories working there way through (4 to be exact) as well as a couple of murders and a couple of attempted murders. The real question is why? As well as who? And the final question, What is the motive?

All these will be answered and more will happen as well.

Enjoy a great novel.

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