The Ghost Fields

March 30, 2015
The unearthing in Norfolk of a WWII-era U.S. plane, with its pilot in his seat and a bullet hole in his temple, propels British author Griffiths's well-crafted seventh mystery featuring forensic archeologist Ruth Galloway (after 2014's The Outcast Dead). The pilot is identified as Frederick J. Blackstock, a scion of a prominent Norfolk family, who served in the American air force, though Fred was supposedly lost at sea in a different plane and presumed dead. The decision of an American TV company to do a program about Norfolk's abandoned airfields brings Frank Barker, an academic Ruth was attracted to while working together on an earlier case, back into her life. The arrival of the film company and Fred's American daughter, Nell Blackstock Goodheart, sets the stage for a series of deaths and personal revelations that culminates in Ruth's being trapped in massive Blackstock Hall during a terrible storm. Griffiths nicely blends history and romance with gothic elements.

May 1, 2015

When a body is found in a downed World War II plane that was accidently uncovered by a construction crew, forensic archaeologist Ruth Galloway and DCI Harry Nelson are called in to investigate. The corpse is unusually well preserved, and there is a bullet in the pilot's forehead. In Griffith's seventh Galloway mystery (after The Outcast Dead), the historical focus this time is on the "ghost fields," abandoned airfields once used by the U.S. military during the war. The surrounding land has been in the hands of the Blackstock family for generations and DNA tests link the corpse to the family. No one is talking to the investigators, but attacks on family members and another murder raise the stakes. Even the encroaching sea and Norfolk's dramatic weather add to the suspense as Ruth gets dangerously close to a killer. VERDICT Series fans and readers interested in World War II history will enjoy the detailed research; Ruth and Harry are engagingly human protagonists, and Griffiths neatly wraps up her intriguing mystery to satisfy the pickiest of crime fiction buffs. [See Prepub Alert, 11/1/14.]--Cheryl Bryan, Orleans, MA

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