Reviews

Ruth Galloway is an archaeologist, splitting her time between recovering ancient bones and objects, and lecturing at the University of Norfolk. When the bones of a small child are found near an archeological site that Ruth worked on years ago she is asked to date them. Whilst it turns out these bones are thousands of years old, Ruth is still drawn in to helping the police with their enquiries.

This was a strange one for me. Given the premise I had expected to be hooked from very early on, it's exactly the sort of thing that I'm normally a sucker for. This one didn't grab me as I thought it would though, and I'm not entirely sure why.

I found Ruth to be a prickly and abrasive main character, she comes across as rather standoffish at times and it sort of made the book have a bit of an unwelcoming feel to it. I wasn't particularly drawn to any of the supporting characters either, and found it hard keeping track of them all at times - that may have been because I wasn't quite as engaged as I could have been though.

I found the audio confusing in places because there are sections told from an alternate point of view interspersed throughout the novel, and I found these weren't easily distinguished from the lead character. This may be different in the print version, but the audio caught me out a few times.

I'm not entirely sold on this, but I've already got the next few books in the series queued up on my audio list ready to go so I'll stick with it for a bit longer and hope that the characters grow on me.

pam2375's review

Go to review page

2.0

OK, I liked this book well enough. I thought that it was well written and the characters were likable when they were supposed to be likable. Why only the 2 stars then? Well, it seems, that this book just did not hold my interest for some reason and I will confess that I did so much skipping ahead that I have no idea how the mystery was solved and who was the 'perp'. To really hit home the rating is the fact that I simply don't care and I have moved on to my next book.

Sorry Ruth Galloway, I probably won't be going on any more adventures with your character.