Ruth is back in Norfolk and is now head of the Archaeology
Department as Phil has retired. She has hired David Brown as her new lecturer to take her place. A recently dead body is discovered on the beach along with Bronze Age artifacts by The Night Hawks who are detectorists. A murder/suicide happens next at the farmhouse of the detectorists. Nelson begins to not trust David Brown. Is he jealous of David's attention to Ruth?
I was glad to see Ruth and Kate return to Norfolk. Lots of changes in Nelson's police department too. I can't wait to read the next book in the series as this book left off as Nelson seems ready to make a decision about his and Ruth's relationship. I highly recommend this series as it is character driven and so interesting if you love a bit of history mixed with your mystery. I would like to thank NetGalley and Quercus Publishers for a free copy for an honest review.

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Excited to have another Ruth Galloway book!
This one was great, another interesting and thought provoking mystery.
New faces and places.
Ruth is now head of the department, hired a new lecturer to take her place, Nelson is rethinking his current life and Judy and Cathbad are still in love.

Can't wait for the next book to see wha is in store for Ruth, Nelson, Judy, Cathbad and Flint.

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The books in Elly Griffiths' Ruth Galloway series always seem to be brushed with a liberal amount of fairy dust, and although the pandemic seems to have knocked off some of that magic this time around, The Night Hawks is still a book capable of making readers forget the outside world.

Ruth is back home and learning just how much paperwork a university head of department has to deal with and how much diplomacy is often required. Her new lecturer, David Brown, has a pet theory that Neolithic immigrants came to England bringing with them a disease that wiped out the native Britons. He'll talk about it at length to anyone who'll listen. Ruth knows that this particular theory needs to be kept under wraps, not only because it will portray Neolithic Britons as people of color (gasp!) but it will also bring out the anti-immigrant nutters. All this could be disastrous for funding.

Meanwhile, DCI Harry Nelson has his work cut out for him, and it's not just those two cases he and his team are working on. The women in his life seem to be expecting a lot from him. Michelle, Ruth, his three daughters... but more importantly the women he works with. Judy is doing her usual exemplary work, but it's his boss, Jo, who's really pushing him to retire-- and Nelson. Does. Not. Want. To.

Griffiths keeps readers guessing with the two investigations Nelson and his team are working on, and I love how she weaves in the legend of the Black Shuck, but for me, the focus is always on Ruth and Nelson. Sometimes it's just tiny details like Ruth watching Young Montalbano on the telly when she's got a spare hour or two to herself. But in The Night Hawks, Nelson grabs a lion's share of my attention. He's finally beginning to wonder how long he can go on living two lives, and he finds advice from a surprising source.

Now all we have to do is wait to see what he does with that advice. Bring on the next book quickly, please!

(Review copy courtesy of the publisher and Net Galley)

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it's the characters that keep me coming back to this series, just quirky enough to be memorable but still likable. Ruth and Nelson are back in the same town again, doing their best to not think about their relationship beyond Kate. I like how everyone knows about them, and anyone new finds it out very quickly. I really liked the idea of the Night Hawks, the Black Shuck legend (I'm famliar with the Black Dog but not heard Black Shuck before), and how Griffiths' plot incorporates a bit of recent events without specifically referencing them. I'm guessing that we will see a lot more of David Brown in future books. All the familiar characters show up and the very end leaves a little cliffhanger, part of which is not surprising since it was foreshadowed several times during the plot, but there's still a decision to be made. A nice fast read and as always very good sense of place.

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