The Stone Circle by Elly Griffiths: Book Review

 Elly Griffiths’ The Stone Circle is the tenth in the series featuring forensic archaeologist Dr Ruth Galloway and DCI Harry Nelson, and the first I’ve read. It’s written in the present tense, which is unusual for a crime novel and something I struggled with for the first part of the book, though when I got used to it it wasn’t a problem. 

The plot centres on the discovery of the remains of a missing girl on an archaeological site in Norfolk — a hangover from a previous unsolved case — and on a series of notes to the investigating team in the style of a previous character who’s now dead. I found myself more than a little confused by the references to what seems to be an earlier book in the series, which is probably what you expect if you come in quite late rather than beginning with book one, but I have a lurking fear that I may have missed a few things as I wasn’t entirely sure of the ins and outs of the previous investigation. 

Griffiths also has a lot of characters and several points of view and it took me a while to keep track of who was who and why they were there, especially given that several of the relationships were extremely complicated with partners and ex-partners, sibling and half-siblings and so on. There’s a short section at the back with mini-biographies of some of the characters and I would have found that really helpful up front (preferably with a few more characters included). 

All of the cast of characters were believable too, though I found Ruth and Nelson’s on-off romance (he’s married with a new baby) a little irritating. In fairness, I suspect that’s also my problem rather than the author’s, because coming in late to the series means I’ve missed a lot of the character development and the back story.

It’s a beautifully written book — at times introspective but I liked that — and its evocation of the landscape of North Norfolk is compelling. These two were the book’s great strengths for me, and I felt transported to the bleak coastal landscape. And although it wasn’t always pacy, the suspense at the end when a baby went missing left me on the edge of my seat.

My gut reaction was that this wasn’t an easy book to read. Is that really a problem? I don’t think so at all — I like a book that rewards effort and this one certainly did. It’s so well done that I would certainly persevere with future books and go back to catch up on earlier ones in the series.

Thanks to Netgalley and Quercus Books for an advance copy of this book in return for an honest review.

In the Night Wood by Dale Bailey: Book Review

I approached Dale Bailey’s gothic thriller, In the Night Wood, much as the protagonist, Charles, approaches the wood of the title — with curiosity and a little apprehension. I’m not normally a reader of gothic fiction but the book appealed and I was ready to take a punt so, like Charles, I stepped off my usual path. 

Unlike Charles I didn’t get lost, and nor was I disappointed. Charles is an American academic with an uncomfortable professional past, a tragic personal life and a guilty secret. He’s also obsessed with a peculiar literary piece from the past, a strange gothic fantasy, and his wife Erin happens to be the last surviving descendant of the author, Caedmon Hollow. When Erin inherits Hollow’s fantastical house and forbidding secret wood, it seems the perfect place to escape the loss of their daughter and the difficulties in their marriage. But of course it isn’t. 

It’s a beautifully-written book, with the descriptions of the tortured wood startling in their intensity. I enjoyed and believed in the characterisation, especially of Charles and Erin, though I couldn’t pretend to like either of them. I could feel for them, though, as they drift apart, tortured by guilt, he driven by his obsession with Caedmon Hollow and she increasingly dependent upon drink and opiates to get through the day. 

In places it slows down, but as they become draw into the strange complications of a past and a present life, the pace picks up as the race is on to save a child’s life and prevent history repeating itself yet again as tragedy. And because it’s gothic, and because it’s a fantasy, and because in places it’s totally weird, it kept me guessing to the very end. That’s a weakness as well as a strength because although the main part of the plot was concluded, I was left without an answer to what felt, to me, like the central theme in the book — Charles and Erin’s relationship. 

Early on the book is heavy with the phrase “once upon a time” and the emphasis on life as a story. But once upon a time implies an ending that tells us, at the very least, whether or not they lived happily ever after. This genre, of course, doesn’t require that, and Dale Bailey acknowledges it in so many words (“maybe if there weren’t really any happily ever afters to our once upon a times…”). But nevertheless I felt that the story was left incomplete. 

That apart, it was a fascinating, if dark, read and I thoroughly enjoyed it. 

Thanks to HarperCollins and Netgalley for an advance copy of In The Night Wood in return for an honest review.