The Outcast Dead
The Dr. Ruth Galloway Mysteries 6
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4.2 • 79 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Forensic archaeologist Dr Ruth Galloway has excavated a body from the grounds of Norwich Castle, once a prison. The body may be that of Victorian murderess Jemima Green. Called Mother Hook for her claw-like hand, Jemima was hanged for the murder of five children.
DCI Harry Nelson has no time for long-ago killers. Investigating the case of three infants found dead, one after the other, in their King's Lynn home, he's convinced that their mother is responsible.
Then a child goes missing. Could the abduction be linked to the long-dead Mother Hook? Ruth is pulled into the case, and back towards Nelson.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Mary Higgins Clark Award winner Griffiths's competent sixth mystery featuring archeologist Ruth Galloway (after 2013's A Dying Fall), Mark Gates, a TV researcher for a British documentary series called Women Who Kill, takes an interest in Ruth after she uncovers the bones of the notorious Mother Hook, a Victorian-era child minder accused of killing at least 20 children in Norwich. Despite the damning folktales, Ruth suspects that Mother Hook was innocent a belief that clashes with Mark's vision of a monstrous child murderer. As Ruth seeks clues lost long ago, her former lover, Det. Chief Insp. Harry Nelson, is closing in on a 37-year-old woman who may have killed her three infants. Meanwhile, the self-described "Childminder" begins kidnapping young children from their homes. Griffiths astutely plays on modern anxieties about working parents and childcare. A clever ending compensates for the frequent narrative-slowing switches between Harry's and Ruth's cases.
