My Friday Post: The Stone Circle by Elly Griffiths

Published on by Margaret

Every Friday Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Gillion at Rose City Reader where you can share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading. You can also share from a book you want to highlight just because it caught your fancy.

At the moment I’m reading The Stone Circle by Elly Griffiths, the 11th book in the Dr Ruth Galloway mystery series. One of the reasons I’m enjoying it is because it has links to the 1st book in the series, The Crossing Places, and another is that I’m fascinated by standing stones and in particular by stone circles.

It begins:

12 February 2016

DCI Nelson,

Well, here we are again. Truly our end is our beginning. That corpse you buried in your garden, has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year? You must have wondered whether I, too, was buried deep in the earth. Oh ye of little faith. You must have known that I would rise again.

Also every Friday there is The Friday 56, hosted by Freda at Freda’s Voice. *Grab a book, any book. *Turn to Page 56 or 56% on your  ereader . If you have to improvise, that is okay. *Find a snippet, short and sweet, but no spoilers!

These are the rules:

  1. Grab a book, any book.
  2. Turn to page 56, or 56% on your eReader. If you have to improvise, that is okay.
  3. Find any sentence (or a few, just don’t spoil it) that grabs you.
  4. Post it.
  5. Add the URL to your post in the link on Freda’s most recent Friday 56 post.
  1. Grab a book, any book.
  2. Turn to page 56, or 56% on your eReader. If you have to improvise, that is okay.
  3. Find any sentence (or a few, just don’t spoil it) that grabs you.
  4. Post it.
  5. Add the URL to your post in the link on Freda’s most recent Friday 56 post.

Page 56:

Clough’s face gives nothing away. He hands over a Starbuck’s cup, which probably completely violates the karma of the dig, and looks around the trench with apparent interest. Ruth drinks the coffee gratefully.

~~~

Description:

DCI Nelson has been receiving threatening letters telling him to ‘go to the stone circle and rescue the innocent who is buried there’. He is shaken, not only because children are very much on his mind, with Michelle’s baby due to be born, but because although the letters are anonymous, they are somehow familiar. They read like the letters that first drew him into the case of The Crossing Places, and to Ruth. But the author of those letters is dead. Or are they?

Meanwhile Ruth is working on a dig in the Saltmarsh – another henge, known by the archaeologists as the stone circle – trying not to think about the baby. Then bones are found on the site, and identified as those of Margaret Lacey, a twelve-year-old girl who disappeared thirty years ago.

As the Margaret Lacey case progresses, more and more aspects of it begin to hark back to that first case of The Crossing Places, and to Scarlett Henderson, the girl Nelson couldn’t save. The past is reaching out for Ruth and Nelson, and its grip is deadly.

18 thoughts on “My Friday Post: The Stone Circle by Elly Griffiths”

  1. Hi Margaret,

    We live really close to both Stonehenge and Avebury, so I suppose we rather take those standing stones and stone circles for granted.

    I have so many Elly Griffiths books on my shelves and reading devices, but I am ashamed to say that I have yet to read any of them. I am desperately trying to get myself into a new regime of reading, then immediately reviewing a book, in the hope that will both improve my review ratios and enable me to read more!

    Wish me luck, I have tried so many different ways of trying to skin the same proverbial cat, and all have been doomed to eventual failure.

    Seasons Greetings and here’s hoping for a much better 2021 🙂

    Yvonne Xx

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  2. I think it’s sad what they’ve had to round Stonehenge, although with so many people visiting I can see why. I first went there as a young teenager when there was free access and it felt so magical. It was just after dawn and we were the only ones there.

    At the moment I have a backlog of books to review – I haven’t felt like reviewing much. I think it’s a good idea to read and review immediately but I’ve rarely managed it. So I wish you luck with that! Seasons Greetings to you too – and best wishes for a better year in 2021.

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  3. As far as I’m concerned, Margaret, it’s hard to go wrong with an Elly Griffiths book, so it’s lovely to see one here. And I do like the setting and context for this one. I hope you’ll enjoy it.

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    1. Thanks Margot, I’ve finished it now and I did enjoy it. I have book 11 waiting to be read and I see that the 13th Ruth Galloway book is due out in February so still more to enjoy.

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  7. I really enjoyed reading The Stone Circle and I still remember fondly the day we went to visit the stone circle at Duddo that you told us about, the place seems magical.

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  8. I love this series and wish she wrote them faster! I recently read (actually listened to) The Zig Zag Girl and it grew on me after a while but I prefer Ruth and her odd cronies.

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  9. I have always been fascinated by standing stones also. I haven’t tried this author before, but hopefully one day I will get to this series. It seems well liked. I hope you have a great weekend.

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