The Last Remains: A Dr. Ruth Galloway Mystery

The discovery of a human skeleton, “laid out like a Hallowe’en prop” behind a wall in a café undergoing renovations in 2021 Kings Lynn, England, drives Edgar winner Griffiths’s harrowing 15th mystery featuring forensic anthropologist Ruth Galloway (after 2022’s The Locked Room). After Ruth is assigned to the cold case, she learns that the remains belong to Emily Pickering, a Cambridge University archaeology student who disappeared in 2002 on a field trip to a prehistoric flint mine. The investigation escalates dramatically when Ruth’s druid friend, Cathbad, is incriminated in Emily’s murder and goes missing. Other suspects include a Cambridge tutor, members of the deceased café owner’s family, and Emily’s fellow students on that long-ago dig. Meanwhile, Ruth’s department at the University of North Norfolk may be shut down, and her married partner, Det. Chief Insp. Harry Nelson, with whom she shares a young daughter, hints that he wants her to move in with him. Griffiths expertly blends a well-wrought procedural with distinctive characters, academic politics, and romance. Fans old and new will be rewarded. Agent: Kirby Kim, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc. (Apr.)