Book Summary and Reviews of The Outcast Dead by Elly Griffiths

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Cloggie Downunder

Entertaining British crime fiction
The Outcast Dead is the sixth book in the Ruth Galloway series by award-winning British author, Elly Griffiths. At a Norwich Castle dig, archaeologist Ruth Galloway and her team have uncovered the remains of what might have been Jemima Green, infamous as nineteenth Century child murderer, Mother Hook. Her boss, Phil Trent has attracted the interest of a TV series, Women Who Kill, whose producer is eager to include the find in their program.

Ruth hopes to stay in the background, but much to Phil’s chagrin, the woman is, unexpectedly, more inclined to put her in front of the camera. Also involved is an American historian, Frank Barker, and Ruth’s first encounter with him ends up with her car in a ditch, but they quickly find they have many interests in common, and enjoy spending time together. Frank has a provocative theory that Jemima Green was actually innocent.

Meanwhile, Nelson’s time is devoted to determining if Liz Donaldson has murdered her son, David. The eight-month-old is the third Donaldson child to have died in infancy, and while everyone who knows her insists that she could not possibly have done it, there are some signs the boy didn’t die naturally.

There’s pressure on Nelson from Cathbad to stop hassling Liz or expect karmic backlash, with Ruth and his daughter, Maddie also weighing in, and several on his team feel that Liz’s strange affect is due to shock or PTSD, that Nelson is being insensitive, but she remains the focus of his investigation. Until a more likely suspect comes to light…

New on Nelson’s team is “the only black policeman in Norfolk”, DS Tim Heathfield, imported from Blackpool, who is having little success connecting with his colleagues in a meaningful way, the new boy with everything to prove, but determined to do just that. DS Judy Johnson is coping well with motherhood and work, but Ruth can see that she misses Cathbad, now living in Lancashire, with the intention of allowing her marriage to Darren to flourish. The longing is apparently mutual.

Soon to be a published author, Ruth has proofs to check, celebrates her forty-third birthday with friends, and gets an unexpected visit from her older brother and his pre-teen sons. Then, a spate of missing children: the first, a false alarm; the second, mysterious, short-lived, with a benign outcome; the third, much too close to home, has all those with young children holding them more closely. DS Dave Clough is surprised to find himself consulting a psychic, and taking her advice seriously.

While the matter at hand is quite grim, Griffiths does provide some blackly funny dialogue. Ruth is astonished when Nelson says “Cathbad always just appears and things usually turn out alright if he’s here.” Much to Nelson’s annoyance, when things hot up, it’s Ruth, having deduced who has taken the child, in the middle of things, endangering, as he sees it, her life when she should be at home looking after Kate.

Griffiths keeps the reader guessing with a few misdirections and red herrings and, by the final pages there have also been some radical changes in relationship dynamics: it will be interesting to see how these develop in the seventh instalment, The Ghost Fields. Entertaining British crime fiction.

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