The Crossing Places book review

The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths
Series: Ruth Galloway #1
Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt on January 5, 2010
Genres: Crime
Pages: 304
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Forensic archaeologist Dr. Ruth Galloway is in her late thirties and lives happily alone with her two cats in a bleak, remote area near Norfolk, land that was sacred to its Iron Age inhabitants—not quite earth, not quite sea. But her routine days of digging up bones and other ancient objects are harshly upended when a child’s bones are found on a desolate beach. Detective Chief Inspector Nelson calls Galloway for help, believing they are the remains of Lucy Downey, a little girl who went missing a decade ago and whose abductor continues to taunt him with bizarre letters containing references to ritual sacrifice, Shakespeare, and the Bible. Then a second girl goes missing and Nelson receives a new letter—exactly like the ones about Lucy. Is it the same killer or a copycat murderer, linked in some way to the site near Ruth’s remote home?

I have had this one in my Audible library for a really long time, and I wasn’t sure what The Crossing Places was all about. All I can say now is that I am SO glad I gave this book a shot. I really loved the characters, the narration style and the setting, the entirety of this book is so atmospheric and I loved learning about the salt marsh. Although I did figure out who the criminal was there were so many other twists and turns that kept me guessing and entertained. This was definitely a surprise read and I loved it way more than I thought I was going to and I think I have found a new comfort crime series. I’m actually really excited to see where this series ends up going and how the characters develop throughout.

The Crossing Places follows Dr Ruth Galloway an archaeologist who begins to help DCI Nelson on a missing girl case. I think I really loved the interaction between these two and I loved how they were so similar in some ways but complete opposites in other. It was a great reading experience to see how they both worked together and also separately. I think my favourite part of this book was seeing that although there was cooperation on both sides they didn’t end up following each other around and still were their own separate people. I also wasn’t opposed to the romance in this one which was a weird one for me because part of me really wanted to rebel against the idea of it because of the circumstances but I couldn’t. It felt like a natural progression for the characters and I really loved the implications for them both. I just think it felt like a grown-up book all the way through and I really appreciated that, there was no part where I was waiting for the characters to stop being childish, they were all really well put together and well written.

For me, the best bit of The Crossing Places was definitely the narration of the story. There was a perfect mix of knowledge being shared and also a sense of chilling suspense. I adored it, there were moments where I jumped along with Ruth and felt panicked for her. It was so brilliantly written and I still can’t get over how much this book made me feel and how much I actually learnt.

The worst bits for me was definitely the pacing of some parts of this book. There were parts where it didn’t feel as though the story was moving forward and I wished The Crossing Places had spread these moments out a little one. Now I know this is in my worst bits but actually I loved this book, really loved it.

YES. YES. YES. If you are looking a new crime series is this is definitely for you. I cannot wait to read on in the series and I would love to hear if any of you have read this series!

Have you read this one? What did you think? Let me know!