Book Summary and Reviews of The House at Sea's End by Elly Griffiths

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Cloggie Downunder

excellent British crime fiction
The House At Sea’s End is the third book in the Ruth Galloway series by award-winning British author, Elly Griffiths. Trace and Irish Ted lead a team of archaeologists conducting a survey on coastal erosion when one of them stumbles across what turns out to be a mass grave in a ravine under the cliff below the home of MEP Jack Hastings: six skeletons with bullet wounds, hands bound behind their backs.

Dr Ruth Galloway, back at work now that Kate is five months old, helps with the rush job to remove them before the tide takes them. The autopsies determine that the men were likely executed; Ruth estimated the remains are less than a century old, aged between 21 and 40; her tests reveal they were probably from Germany. A German journalist turns up on Ruth’s doorstep and gives them names.

DCI Harry Nelson has a historic multiple murder case on his hands, and something that the Hastings matriarch says sends him looking for members of the local Home Guard, one of whom is the grandfather of his Superintendent, Gerald Whitcliffe. These men would be his best chance for information about the deaths. It turns out, though, that of these old men, High Anselm, who alerted the journalist to the murders, has died recently, apparently of a stroke.

Archie Whitcliffe, when Nelson talks to him, says a few cryptic things, including something about a blood oath, things that cannot be later clarified when the man dies that night. His carer says his enigmatic last word was Lucifer, and Nelson is not convinced he died a natural death, which has him also wondering about Hugh Anselm’s demise.

As Nelson and the soon-to-be-married DS Judy Johnson search for elderly Broughton residents who might recall the events of almost seventy years previous, as they page through old parish bulletins and sort through Hugh Anselm’s papers, a body washes up on the beach, and it isn’t an accidental drowning or a fall from the cliff. It is beginning to look like someone wants the circumstances of the deaths to remain secret.

In this instalment, as well as digging up bones and lecturing students, Ruth endures (rather than enjoys) a hen party, solves a secret code, attends a wedding, irretrievably loses her mobile phone, is criticised for her mothering, and almost drowns. There’s both a naming ceremony and a baptism for baby Kate, a Bosnian archaeologist comes for a short stay, and Nelson gets the kiss of life. The final body count, if a historical suicide is included, runs to an even ten. And with lots of speculation going on, the secret of Kate’s paternity looks to be on thin ice. The fourth book, A Room Full Of Bones, is eagerly anticipated.

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