The Woman In Blue: The Dr Ruth Galloway Mysteries 8

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Known as England's Nazareth, the medieval town of Little Walsingham is famous for religious apparitions. So when Ruth Galloway's druid friend Cathbad sees a woman in a white dress and a dark blue cloak standing alone in the local cemetery one night, he takes her as a vision of the Virgin Mary. But then a woman wrapped in blue cloth is found dead the next day, and Ruth's old friend Hilary, an Anglican priest, receives a series of hateful, threatening letters. Could these crimes be connected? When one of Hilary's fellow female priests is murdered just before Little Walsingham's annual Good Friday Passion Play, Ruth, Cathbad, and DCI Harry Nelson must team up to find the killer before he strikes again. Wanda de Guébriant, “Lydia Delectorskaya, biographie,” in Dominique Szymusiak et al., Lydia D.: Lydia Delectorskaya, muse et modèle de Matisse, exh.cat. (Paris: Réunion des Musées Nationaux, 2010), 204. The drawing is reproduced on p. 25. It would eventually be given to the Pushkin Museum, Moscow. Add to this mix, women priests seeking more recognition; a rehab centre for drug and alcohol abuse and an isolated community once the tour buses leave, you have a wonderful setting. In the mind and writing skill of Elly Griffiths you ultimately have murder, and over the telling of the investigation more motives and persons of interest to the Police than the Stations of the Cross. I have had something made, and it will be modern, it will definitely be made for a woman, but it will also be lifting the embroidery of the privy council.”

Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival. I had many suspicions about some people from the start and it was fun to read and find out when I’d guesses right/wrong. There were lots of red herrings but all of them made sense. I’d thought of the culprit (s) at different points but I love when I can’t guess correctly and this was one time when I was stymied. I read these books for the characters and the relationships and the settings, but this mystery was complex and complicated, and believable, and I thought it was a great part of the book. I found particularly sad both of the murders in this book. The unlikely on-off romance between gruff and unreconstructed male DCI Harry Nelson and forensic archaeology lecturer Ruth has been a continuing feature of this series and together they are parents to Kate (or as Nelson insistent on calling her, “Katie”). Despite Nelson’s marriage to glamorous hairdresser and childhood sweetheart, Michelle, domestic waters are muddied by the presence of Nelson’s lingering feelings for Ruth and Michelle’s own attachment to one of her husband’s team in the shape of DS Tim Heathfield. It is because of people’s comments here on Goodreads that I decided to give this book a try. Relying mostly on libraries for my books, I often find myself coming into a series midway through. The only other one I had read of this series which I didn’t realise till later was book 5. Despite this being book 8 in the series, I found it easy enough to get into and follow what was happening. The story covers plenty of territory with archaeology, information about the medieval town, religious rites and the annual passion play, as well as the issue of women priests, which as the story shows can be polarising, plus the ongoing fluctuating relationship that exists between Ruth and Harry. Though married to Michael, Harry is the father of Ruth’s five year old daughter Kate.

Vermeer at the Getty

As always, the characters are more important than the murder mystery itself. We get a few revelations in this story, both happy and sad. An uncommon, down-to-earth heroine whose acute insight, wry humor, and depth of feeling make her a thoroughly engaging companion." -- Erin Hart

The major problem is that there is a limit to how many police investigations credibly require help from an archaeologist. In this one, Griffiths makes no real attempt to bring Ruth in officially. Instead, one of the women priests attending the conference just happens to be an old friend of Ruth's so, when she starts receiving threatening letters, of course she takes them to Ruth. Well, if you were being threatened, of course you'd go to an archaeologist you knew vaguely from University decades ago rather than to the police, wouldn't you? You wouldn't? No, neither would I.

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Despite all the talk about religion (most of which either went over my head or I had to look up and that didn’t greatly interest me, except for the history aspect) I really liked this book. A vision of the Virgin Mary foreshadows a string of cold-blooded murders, revealing a dark current of religious fanaticism in an old medieval town in this Ruth Galloway mystery. Art historian Ellen McBreen ponders the role of Henri Matisse’s muse, model, and collaborator, Lydia Delectorskaya, in this iconic painting When Ruth’s friend Cathbad sees a vision of the Virgin Mary, in a white gown and blue cloak, in the graveyard next to the cottage he is house-sitting, he takes it in his stride. Walsingham has strong connections to Mary, and Cathbad is a druid after all; visions come with the job. But when the body of a woman in a blue dressing-gown is found dead the next day in a nearby ditch, it is clear Cathbad’s vision was all too human, and that a horrible crime has been committed. DCI Nelson and his team are called in for the murder investigation, and soon establish that the dead woman was a recovering addict being treated at a nearby private hospital. Fernand Léger, La Femme en Bleu (Woman in Blue), 1912, oil on canvas, 76 x 51 1/8 inches, 193 x 129.9 cm, Kunstmuseum, Basel.