The Locked Room written by Elly Griffiths is Book #14 of the Dr. Ruth Galloway Mystery series.
The Last Remains written by Elly Griffiths is Book #15 of the Dr. Ruth Galloway Mystery series.
I am writing reviews/recommendations of these two titles together, as they are the last two titles (as of 2024) of this magnificent series.

The Locked Room, published in 2022. “Pandemic lockdowns have Dr. Ruth Galloway isolated from everyone but a new neighbor - until Nelson comes calling, investigating a decades-long string of murder-suicides.”
The Last Remains, published in 2023. “The discovery of a missing women’s bones force Ruth and Nelson to finally confront their feelings for each other as they desperately work to exonerate one of their own.”

I read the entire series and procrastinated a bit with these last 2 titles. I just didn’t want the series to end! The characters had become so realistic, so familiar to me that I felt I would be saying goodbye to very close friends when I read the last few pages. (I am not very good at goodbyes.)
The books did not disappoint and I was very happy with the ending.
In fact, Book #14, The Locked Room, included a ‘Who’s Who in the Dr. Ruth Galloway Mysteries’. Excellent. And an extract from’Whittaker the time-traveling cat’. And a well-loved quote used many times in the series by Julian of Norwich.
“All shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.”
* Julian of Norwich (c.1342-c.1416) is known almost only through her book, The Revelations of Divine Love, one of the great classics of the spiritual life.

Why I love this series so much.
Very clever plots. Suspense. Excitement. Realistic and endearing characters who grew and developed along with the series. Fascinating tidbits of Mythology, Celtic lore, History & Culture
of the Norfolk area. Fascinating, lovely location. Down-to-Earth dialogue. An excellent investigative team. Academic life. Police life. Cathbad’s character. The children - Kate, Miranda, Michael & Maddie. Archeology. All the quotes from Julian of Norwich.

My thanks to Ms. Griffiths for her very lovely writing and characters. ( )

I enjoyed this novel by Elly Griffiths, despite it being set in the early months of 2020 and the Covid-19 lockdown. The novel sparked off memories of those awful times and the characters occasionally played fast and loose with lockdown and had much more fun than I did. Otherwise, this was an interesting story that both moved the relationship between Ruth and Nelson forward (and this was the heart of the novel) and had a fascinating mystery.going on as the police tried to work in such difficult circumstances. There are strange things happening in the dream world too, as you would expect. ( )

When the Covid lockdown is imposed, Nelson's team are looking into the suicide of a woman who apparently put a meal in the microwave and then took an overdose of sleeping pills. Examination of the records showed a string of similar suicides with mild discrepancies.

I found the mystery and its solution improbable and was far more interested in the affects of Covid and lockdown on the characters. ( )

The fourteenth Ruth Galloway mystery coincides with the outbreak of the Covid-19 epidemic. Ruth discovers a photograph of her cottage when she is going through her mother's things now that three years have passed since her death. The photo comes as a surprise since it was taken years before Ruth bought her home and it has a mysterious label on the back: Dawn 1963. She wonders what connection her mother had to an area that she didn't like as an adult.

Ruth and Kate also have a new neighbor who is renting Bob's cottage while he is back in Australia. Zoe is a nurse who is very busy during the Covid crisis but seems intent on befriending Ruth and Kate. Ruth and Zoe hit it off. But Nelson, who is separated from Michelle, is more suspicious. He discovers that the nurse had changed her name after being tried for murdering some of her elderly patients. She was acquitted and the real murderer subsequently charged and convicted but she's still infamous.

Nelson is still being pressured to retire but finds himself investigating some suspicious deaths: women committing suicide seemingly out of the blue. His team is already adjusting to social distancing and working from home, but Nelson misses his team meetings where they can bounce ideas off each other. When Judy's partner Cathbad gets Covid the whole epidemic becomes real to all of them as they watch him being put on a ventilator and almost die.

Then Zoe disappears and Kate and Nelson unite to find her. Kate and Nelson are still feeling out their relationship. Nelson is spending a lot of time with Ruth and Kate on the marsh, but Kate isn't sure that she could ever live with Nelson though he is pushing for that. The only thing is that he wants to leave Ruth's home and make another home for them together maybe even moving back to Blackpool.

This was a very authentic look at the early days of the Covid epidemic and illustrates that crime didn't stop and some normal problems like spousal abuse had the room to get even worse with everyone sheltering in place. I had also never thought about the plight of university students who either were from other countries or who had no home to return to when the lockdowns started.

This was another enjoyable episode in a long-running series. ( )

This is my first Ruth Galloway book, but I am excited to go back and read the rest of the series! The Locked Room is set during the pandemic, and Ruth is going through old photos at her dad's home when she finds one of her cottage taken years before she owned it.
Some suspicious deaths are made to look like suicide are happening and the women all are of a certain age and demographic. Someone goes missing. Meanwhile someone is trapped in a locked room. How does all this connect? Interesting take on a mystery set during Covid and lockdown.
Other characters-Judy and Cathbad (local druid) and Nelson, the father of Ruth's daughter. ( )