The Stone Circle

March 4, 2019
Mary Higgins Clark Award winner Griffiths’s enticing 11th mystery to feature forensic anthropologist Ruth Galloway and her married lover, Det. Chief Insp. Harry Nelson of the King’s Lynn CID (after 2018’s The Dark Angel), harkens back to their first case together, when they investigated missing girls near the Norfolk marshes and conceived their now seven-year-old daughter, Kate. Anonymous threatening letters sent to Nelson appear to be from the person who led the pair into that first case, Ruth’s mentor and later antagonist. The discovery of the bones of 12-year-old Margaret Lacey, who disappeared in 1981, in an archeological dig, raises the stakes. Series fans should enjoy echoes of Griffiths’s debut, 2009’s The Crossing Places, and the roles played by Det. Sgt. Judy Johnson and her police partner, Maddie, in seeking Margaret’s killer. Meanwhile, Nelson’s pregnant wife prepares to deliver a child who may or may not be his. The continuing lack of resolution in Ruth and Nelson’s relationship may wear on even the most patient readers. Still, fans of forensic mysteries will find plenty to like. Agent: Kirby Kim, Janklow & Nesbit.