remarkableRichmond Times (US)

Dying Fall

Ruth’s old friend Dan Golding dies in a house fire. But before he died Dan wrote to Ruth telling her that he had made a ground-breaking archaeological discovery. Could this find be linked to his death and who are the sinister neo-Nazi group who were threatening Dan? Ruth makes the trip to Blackpool to investigate, wary of encroaching on DCI Harry Nelson’s home ground. Soon Ruth is embroiled in a mystery that involves the Pendle Witches, King Arthur and – scariest of all – Nelson’s mother.

There are forces at work in the town that that threaten all that Ruth holds dear. But, in the final showdown on Blackpool Pleasure Beach, it is Cathbad who faces the greatest danger of all.

A Room Full of Bones

It is Halloween night in King’s Lynn, and Dr Ruth Galloway is attending a strange event at the local history museum – the opening of a coffin containing the bones of a medieval bishop. But what Ruth finds is the body of the museum’s curator lying beside the coffin.

Soon the museum’s wealthy owner lies dead in his stables too. These two deaths could be from natural causes but when he is called in to investigate, DCI Harry Nelson isn’t convinced, and it is only a matter of time before Ruth and Nelson cross paths once more.

When threatening letters come to light, events take an even more sinister turn. But as Ruth’s friends become involved, where will her loyalties lie? As her convictions are tested, she and Nelson must discover how Aboriginal skulls, drug smuggling and the mystery of The Dreaming may hold the answer to these deaths, and their own survival.

The House at Sea’s End

A team of archaeologists, investigating coastal erosion on the north Norfolk coast, unearth six bodies buried at the foot of a cliff. How long have they been there? What could have happened to them? Forensics expert Ruth Galloway and DCI Nelson are drawn together again to unravel the past. Tests reveal that the bodies have lain, preserved in the sand, for sixty years. The mystery of their deaths stretches back to the Second World War, a time when Great Britain was threatened by invasion. But someone wants the truth of the past to stay buried, and will go to any lengths to keep it that way…even murder.

The Janus Stone

Dr Ruth Galloway’s forensic skills are called upon when builders, demolishing an old house in Norwich, uncover the bones of a child – minus the skull – beneath a doorway. Is it some ritual sacrifice or just plain straightforward murder? Ruth links up with DCI Harry Nelson to investigate.

The house was once a children’s home. Nelson traces the Catholic priest who used to run the place. He tells him that two children did go missing forty years before – a boy and a girl. They were never found.

When carbon dating proves that the child’s bones predate the home and relate to a time when the house was privately owned, Ruth is drawn ever more deeply into the case. But as spring turns into summer it becomes clear that someone is trying hard to put her off the scent by frightening her to death…

The Crossing Places

Dr Ruth Galloway is called in when a child’s bones are discovered near the site of a pre-historic henge on the north Norfolk salt marshes. Are they the remains of a local girl who disappeared ten years earlier – or are the bones much older?

DCI Harry Nelson refuses to give up the hunt for the missing girl. Since she vanished, someone has been sending him bizarre anonymous notes about ritual sacrifice, quoting Shakespeare and the Bible. He knows that Ruth’s expertise and experience could help him finally to put this case to rest.

But when a second child goes missing, Ruth finds herself in danger from a killer who knows she’s getting ever closer to the truth…

Winner of the Mary Higgins Clark Award 2011

Shortlisted for the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year

The Eternal City

Gaby, the youngest of the de Angelis sisters, always knew she was her father Enzo’s favourite; so when Enzo dies on the day her own daughter is born, her life is turned upside down.

In the emotional aftermath of the funeral, it emerges that her father has asked that his ashes be taken back to his native city, Rome. Suddenly, Gaby and her new family are thrown headlong into the wider de Angelis clan with all of their conflicting ideas and opinions.

As the family journeys to Rome to say a final goodbye to Enzo, emotions run high; but none higher than Gaby’s, as she comes face to face with the man she once thought she would marry.

One Summer in Tuscany

Perfect holiday reading from Domenica de Rosa, author of the bestselling Dr Ruth Galloway Mysteries under the pen name Elly Griffiths.

A group of would-be authors retreats to Tuscany where they learn more than how to write better.

Patricia O’Hara’s carefully composed ads for the writers’ retreat she runs promise so much. The splendour of the thirteenth century Italian castle and chef Aldo’s melanzane never fail to wow the guests, but huge maintenance bills and bad news from the bank mean it’s make or break time for the Castello.

Each of her seven aspiring authors arrives with the inevitable baggage alongside their unpublished manuscripts. But this August something is different, and soon lifelong spinster Mary is riding on the back of Aldo’s vespa, and smouldering odd-job man Fabio has set more than one heart racing.

As temperatures rise, the writers gossip, flirt and gently polish their prose by the pool. But with ghosts, scorpions, and some unexpected visitors to contend with, one thing’s for sure: neither the Castello, nor Patricia, has ever seen a summer like this.

The Secret of Villa Serena

Emily Robertson looks like the woman who has it all: the lovingly restored Tuscan farmhouse, the three beautiful children, the successful, attentive husband. But when her husband dumps her by text, she has to face up to some stark home truths.

She has no money, her cleaner hates her, her eldest girl is out of her depth with the local seducer, her middle daughter is dangerously underweight, and her darling baby is fast becoming a brat. She doesn’t even have any Italian friends

Even as Emily admits that she’s not living the Tuscan dream, she finds herself drawn into the village of Monte Albano and discovers the genuine Italy, darker and more intriguing than she had ever imagined. If she can get over a lingering obsession with her youthful first love, an attractive stranger might be about to show her the time of her life…

Return to the Italian Quarter

The Di Napolis may have been raised in England, but their souls are Italian… Charismatic, irascible and defiantly Italian, Cesare presides over his large family much like his Roman namesake. But when a journalist begins asking questions about his allegiances during the war, Sophie realises how little she really knows her adored grandfather. She embarks with him on a journey of discovery through turn of the century Naples, 1920s Clerkenwell and the war years, in the course which she learns something else: whom it is that she really loves.