The Covid pandemic provides the backdrop for Edgar winner Griffiths's meandering 14th mystery featuring forensic archaeologist Ruth Galloway (after 2021's The Night Hawks), set during the first few months of 2020. Ruth is asked to examine a skeleton found at the site of a medieval cemetery near Norwich Cathedral. Meanwhile, her on-again, off-again lover, Norfolk Det. Chief Insp. Harry Nelson, is looking into the death of a part-time librarian. All signs point to the middle-aged woman's suicide, but Nelson isn't convinced of this, "because who puts a Weight Watchers' chicken and lemon risotto in the microwave if they're planning to kill themselves"? His investigation turns up the names of other local women--all seemingly happy churchgoers--who have recently died by suicide. Ruth eventually joins Nelson in the search for a connecting thread between the victims, which touches on such personal matters as relationship breakups, rapprochements, family reunions, loved ones in hospital with Covid, lonely lockdowns, and Zoom meetings. A surfeit of detail about the impact of the pandemic slows the crime solving. Established fans will best appreciate this one. Agent: Kirby Kim, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc. (June)

Many authors have avoided bringing the isolation and fear of the COVID pandemic into their stories, but Griffiths wades right in. In this fourteenth Ruth Galloway mystery (after The Night Hawks, 2021), Ruth is trying to conduct anthropology classes online from her living room while struggling to home-school her daughter, Kate, now a restless and inquisitive 11 year-old. Then Inspector Harry Nelson, her on-and-off-again lover, involves her in a series of murder/suicides. Ruth has also been working on a mystery of her own. While clearing out her late mother's effects, she finds a photo of her (Ruth's) cottage with the annotation, "Dawn 1963." This is the same mother who abhorred Ruth's home, "miles from everywhere . . . facing the Saltmarsh, inhabited only by migrating birds and the ghosts of lost children calling from the sea." Meanwhile, her Druid friend Cathbad contracts the virus and is fighting for his life, and Ruth places herself in great danger by venturing out to deal with a situation involving the unearthing of a medieval plague victim and rumors of a ghost called The Grey Lady of Tombland. Ruth proves endearing in her insecurities and inspiring in her fierce determination as she copes with a perilous world. The Galloway series has achieved both critical acclaim and widespread popular success, and this latest installment will only enhance its reputation.

Puzzling over a photograph found among her late mother's belongings, forensic archaeologist Ruth Galloway travels to Norfolk with daughter Kate and winds up in COVID-19 lockdown. She forges a socially distanced friendship with neighborly Zoe, but when DCI Nelson (also Kate's father) breaks quarantine to pursue a crime spree extending to Norfolk, he learns that Ruth, Kate, and Zoe are missing. From Edgar Award winner Griffiths; with a 40,000-copy first printing.