Tuesday, May 15, 2018

The Dark Angel

Title: The Dark Angel
Author: Elly Griffiths
Published: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (May 15, 2018)
Format: eBook, Hardcover 352 pages
Genre: Mystery
Source: My thanks to Netgalley and Quercus for an opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book.
Series: Ruth Galloway #10

Elly Griffiths sure likes to keep her readers guessing and with the title answering a question that you did not know that you had asked, since there are many references to dark angels in this book, it is up to the reader to decide which angel Elly Griffiths was referring to.

Continuing on the heels of her last book, “The Chalk Pit“, Elly Griffiths dives right back in to the dangling question of who is the father of Michelle’s baby. DCI Harry Nelson is beginning to wonder, but with his wife expressing repeatedly that there was never anything physical with Tim, Nelson leaves it at that and realizes that there could never be a future with Ruth. That is until Ruth and Kate take up an offer of a working holiday in Italy and with an earthquake and a body found in a crumbling wall, Nelson is on the first plane out to save them and perhaps a second chance to play family until he is expected to return home to his real one.

Elly Griffiths floats the reader between several storylines. When Harry is in Italy and Ruth is part of a television show and dodging the secrets of a small village, Mickey Webb, who has just been release from prison after serving ten years for the death of his wife and children, is playing the innocent redeemed man that only wants to apologize for his past. Mickey’s current wife is playing her supportive role and though he has been seen in Harry’s neighborhood when Michelle is home alone, Mickey has his alibi and reasoning in place until that fateful night when things change suddenly.

Combining history, science, and human frailties, Elly Griffiths brings the reader into Ruth Galloway’s world and does not let them go with a simple happily ever after ending. You have to work in these books, you are taught not only the history of the area and the science involved, but also the accounts of all the characters that the author has interwoven over the previous nine books and the heartbreak that is brought to each in turn.

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