If you ever choose to read the Sunday Times, you might be familiar with the columnist India Knight (once expelled from Wycombe Abbey School, but that is irrelevant). Sounds fun to me to be allowed to write about what ever you wish, as she does, often in a very opinionated manner. Or, maybe not, there would of course be deadlines. Douglas Adams, he of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, said “I love deadlines. I love the whooshing sound they make as they go by.” Anyway, during the last year, columnists were obviously asked to finish their article by saying what they had watched that week and what they had read. One Sunday she said that if you had not read the Norfolk Mysteries by Elly Griffiths, then you were very fortunate and were in for a treat.
Looking up details of this author I found that there were 10 books and they were available as a set for £30, thus very cheaply. However, maybe I wouldn’t like them so it didn’t seem sensible to buy the whole lot in one go. I was wrong! I loved them and bought them in ones and twos and of course paid a great deal more for them. Maybe if she recommends anything else I will trust her taste in books next time.
Elly Griffiths (real name Domenica da Rosa, which actually sounds more like a nom de plume) knows Norfolk well and is of course one of many who have fallen under the spell of that flat, sometimes rather bleak, English county, J.M. Dalgliesh and Ian Sansom for example. These Norfolk mysteries are detective stories with the added interest of some forensic archaeology. However, the reason I binge read 10 books was the main character called Ruth Galloway. Ruth Galloway is achingly well written and her personality is beautifully crafted. You truly feel as if you are getting to know her as a person and I very quickly really cared about her and what was happening in her life.
Ruth lives in a very isolated situation on the margins of a salt marsh. Apart from being powerful poetically, this coastal scenery also acts as a metaphor maybe, because Ruth is someone who isn’t quite sure where she fits in, or indeed whether she even wants to fit in. She is often on the edge of groups and friendships and even of the relationship that she has with Harry the detective. This complicated liaison meanders through the whole series of books. At times this is satisfying and at others infuriating but it is always endearing and covers the whole range of emotions within the human condition. Here is the salt marsh:
“Everything is pale and washed out, grey-green merging to grey-white as the marsh meets the sky. Far off is the sea, a line of darker grey, seagulls riding on the waves. It is utterly desolate and Ruth has absolutely no idea why she loves it so much.”
For me this description brings to mind the coast a little further south in Suffolk, Benjamin Britten land and his setting for Peter Grimes. The writing conjures the sound of the wind in the reeds and the sea soughing and sucking.
I loved these books and will await the next one which is pre-ordered and due to drop onto my doormat in mid August.
And there is more! Elly Griffiths also has a shorter series called the Brighton mysteries. No forensic archaeology here but a 1950s setting with the lead being taken by a detective who was studying at Oxford when he was called up in the Second World War and couldn’t quite find the will to return to his studies afterwards. He joined the police force instead and is regarded with some suspicion by those who feel slightly threatened by his university background … even if he didn’t complete his degree.
Elly Griffiths very competently draws us a picture of post war Brighton. It is grey, despondent, lacking in confidence and poor. There is still rationing and the war and war time memories loom large in people’s minds. She obviously did plenty of research on local history and geography (she does live in Brighton) and there were no apparent glaring errors that upset the story but sometimes the use of language jarred a little. The author is too young to have experienced the 1950s and occasionally I found myself thinking: no, nobody would have used that phrase back then. However, this did not really detract from the narrative as I find the way language changes and ebbs and flows with time quite fascinating.
But, it is Ruth that I commend to you. She is such a very entertaining read.
P.S. Also, writing under her real name, Domenica da Rosa, the author has written several romances with an Italian setting. I haven’t though sampled any of them.
And, those of you who have discovered Susan Hill’s Simon Serrailler, the next novel is due out in October. I think I may just have time to gallop through the 10 books again in preparation for the new read!