Reviews with content warning for Animal death - The Crossing Places

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The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths

28 reviews

bethr's review

adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

The first in this series about a forensic archaeologist who helps solve crimes. I’m not sure where the series will go from here, but the main character is flawed and complex enough that I am already planning to return the next in the series.

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singalana's review against another edition

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challenging mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.25

Risteyskohdat on sekavasta juonestaan ja kissanomistajia pöyristyttävistä juonenkäänteistään ihan mukiinmenevä thrilleri.

Risteyskohdat kertoo Ruth Gallowaysta, arkeologista, joka kutsutaan tutkimaan poliisin löytämiä luita. Etsivä Harry Nelson toivoo, että luut kuuluisivat kymmenen vuotta sitten kadonneelle tytölle, että tytön vanhemmat saisivat vihdoinkin vastauksia, mitä heidän kadonneelle lapselleen tapahtui.

Ruth Galloway on lähes neljäkympinen arkeologi, joka asuu yksin marskimaan laidalla. Hän soimaa itseään ylipainosta. Harry Nelson on etsivä jolla on kaunis vaimo ja kaksi tytärtä. Hahmot ovat suhteellisen hyvin toteutettuja, vaikka heissä omat vikansa onkin. Tarinakin on suhteellisen mielenkiintoinen, vaikka alkupuolella tuntuukin etenevän vähän hitaasti. Huomasin arvanneeni syyllisen melko alkupuolella, joten mitään kovin uutta kirja ei tältä osin tarjonnut.

Spoilereita!

Vaikka Ruthin itseään ylipainosta soimaaminen onkin hieman ärsyttävää, enemmän minua häiritsi hänen tapansa kissanomistajana: kissat ovat vapaana linnunsuojelualueen laitamilla. Lisäksi kirjan tapahtumat huomioon ottaen, Ruth ei vaikuta ottavan kissojensa turvallisuutta kovin vakavasti.

Sitten päästään itse juoneen. Mielestäni ei ollut kovin loogista, että kirjeiden lähettäjä ja lasten katoamisesta vastuussa oleva olivat eri henkilöitä. Lisäksi en pidä siitä tavasta, miten lopussa syyllisille kävi köpelösti, ja miten sekaisin tekijät lopulta olivat. Se tuntui kummalliselta.
Oma lukunsa on tietysti Ruthin ja Nelsonin tekoset, ja varsinkin lopun paljastus… En usko, että jatkan enää tätä sarjaa, vaikka kirja ihan suhteellisen viihdyttävä olikin.

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asha1725's review

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mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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sophiepearson's review against another edition

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dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

3.0

Enjoyed this as an easy listen. Although I did zone out a few times, whoops. I liked most of the characters, the mystery, and also enjoyed that it was set in Norfolk near where I grew up. What I didn’t like was the death of a pet (found that really upsetting), and some of the commentary on women, especially the repeated fat phobia - quite an outdated narrative. That being said, I will probably listen to more in the series!

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stefhyena's review against another edition

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mysterious relaxing medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

This hit the spot. I have to admit mystery is my favourite genre. I suspected the person who did it but I was not sure. There was a thing in the book (a sort of a red herring) that did not make much sense. The crime itself didn't really either I feel like child abductions (like beautiful young girl ritual murders) are overrepresented in fiction and yet aspects of this book drew me in and made me want to keep reading.

I do enjoy an academic setting when there's not too much internal politics or romance. I wasn't a fan of the romance in the book for...reasons but the polyamory representation was good (although we need more of that in more books as this version was not the only version). Some objectifying stuff about women being attractive or unattractive (and fat) but I suspect the main agenda is to start to unpack that throughout the series (I hope so). Archaeology is quite an interesting choice of discipline too.

I would read more of these besides Griffiths is a favourite.

Content Warnings

kimmer99's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

Content Warnings

elisamorvena's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

Content Warnings

ceallaighsbooks's review

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dark fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

TITLE—The Crossing Places

AUTHOR—Elly Griffiths

PUBLISHED—2009

PUBLISHER—Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

GENRE—mystery crime thriller

SETTING—Norfolk, England

MAIN THEMES/SUBJECTS—archaeology, New Age stuff, ancient henge sites, ley lines, birding, salt marsh, boundaries & liminal places, human sacrifice & ritual burials, bog bodies, horrible human relationship dynamics, cats, university jobs, child abduction & murder, modern English society & culture (though a bit dated even for 2009 imo…)

WRITING STYLE—⭐️⭐️⭐️

CHARACTERS—⭐️⭐️

STORY/PLOT—⭐️

PHILOSOPHY—🚩🚩🚩

My thoughts:

Oh gods this book was a mess. Though I’m not too familiar with the genre (crime/mystery/thriller), I thought the plot seemed way too cliché and predictable (I’m terrible at guessing whodunnits and this one I guessed *immediately*), the characters’ actions made zero sense to the point that it was disorienting, and the underlying philosophy was awful.

—👇🏻HERE BE SPOILERS👇🏻—

This book presented New Agers as mad kooks, and born again Christians as fanatical (but at least nOt As BaD as New Agers 😬). The (“fat”, single-with-two-cats, living-in-an-isolated-cottage) MC—who referred to her body at one point as “a waste” because she had never had children—was “redeemed” at the end by becoming pregnant by the married man she slept with halfway through the book. 🥴 Her odd obsession with her toxic, abusive, cheating mentor was extremely lazily justified at the end because pEoPlE aRe CoMpLiCaTeD and nO bOdY iS pErFeCt even though the dude literally died while chasing her out into the marsh during a storm and the MC was convinced he was the killer at one point. One of the characters got back together with his wife even though he was neither happy nor in love with her and it was *uncritically* presented as the right thing to do. And the person who ended up being the killer was neurodivergent and basically presented as having done what he did due to mental instability. Yeah. This book was a WHOLE mess.

I read this book as part of #ArchaeoBookclub and the archaeology in the book was, though somewhat accurately depicted (i.e. the author clearly did her research), disappointingly applied fixating on death rituals (which is an over-sensationalized part of archaeological scholarship) and, even worse, human sacrifice (a highly controversial and debatable interpretation of some ancient burials). It just came off as very lazy and many times the things the author did get wrong (how artifacts were often incorrectly excavated & recorded, the fact that the use of honeysuckle rope in one of the modern burials wasn’t an immediate indicator of who the killer was, and the archaeologist musing about the monetary value of one of the artifacts as her first thought upon uncovering it) too often took me out of the story.

—🛑END OF SPOILERS🛑—

I would not recommend this book.

Final note: Still glad I read it though (and that I was able to get it from the library) just so I know what’s out there. 👀 And I also want to emphasize that I firmly believe that just because a book is a piece of “genre fiction” or is meant as “just” escapism and entertainment, that doesn’t mean that it’s ok to uncritically feature highly problematic ideas and beliefs.

⭐️

(This proves at least that I don’t only give books four and five star ratings. 😆 Fwiw I will only really post one or two star reviews if I feel like the book was problematic on some level and needs to be addressed.)

Season: Winter

CW // fatphobia, animal death (cat), child abduction & murder, infidelity, misogyny, toxic relationships, ableism (Please feel free to DM me for more specifics!)

Further Reading—

LAST RITUALS by Yrsa Sigurðardóttir—this was another book from this genre that I read because of its connections to archaeology and certain historical subjects that I’m interested in and that was similarly disappointing in its handling of those topics, though maybe not as much as Griffiths’ book.

Content Warnings

zelephante's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

Content Warnings

good_quiet_kitty's review against another edition

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mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

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