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The Woman In Blue

The Dr Ruth Galloway Mysteries 8

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The Woman In Blue

By: Elly Griffiths
Narrated by: Jane McDowell
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The murder of women priests in the shrine town of Walsingham sucks Dr Ruth Galloway into an unholy investigation.

Ruth's friend Cathbad is house-sitting in Walsingham, a Norfolk village famous as a centre for pilgrimages to the Virgin Mary. One night, Cathbad sees a strange vision in the graveyard beside the cottage: a young woman dressed in blue. Cathbad thinks that he may have seen the Madonna herself but, the next morning, the woman's body, dressed in white nightdress and blue dressing-gown, is found in a ditch outside Walsingham. DCI Nelson and his team are called in and establish that the dead woman was a recovering addict being treated at a nearby private hospital.

Ruth, a devout atheist, has managed to avoid Walsingham during her seventeen years in Norfolk. But then an old university friend, Hilary Smithson, asks to meet her in the village,ad Ruth is amazed to discover that her friend is now a priest. Hilary has been receiving vitriolic anonymous letters targeting women priests - letters containing references to local archaeology and a striking phrase about a woman 'clad in blue, weeping for the world.'

Then another woman is murdered - a priest.

As Walsingham prepares for its annual Easter re-enactment of the Crucifixion, the race is on to unmask the killer before they strike again...
(P)2016 Quercus Publishing Plc©2016 Elly Griffiths Amateur Sleuths Archaeology Cosy Detective Fiction Mystery Women Sleuths Women's Fiction Scary Village
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Critic reviews

One of my current favourite crime series . . . a pleasure from start to finish (Val McDermid)
Griffiths has become a dab hand at plotting and cranking up the tension. The murders, and the muddled humanity of the characters, keep us turning the pages
Crime that doesn't sacrifice good writing and clever characterisation for the sake of the plot (Sarra Manning)
Elly Griffiths writes ever-more ingenious detective stories with a powerful sense of place and a varied cast of sympathetic and unusual characters. Her heroine is a winner.
Griffiths weaves superstition and myth into her crime novels, skilfully treading a line between credulity and modern methods of detection
All stars
Most relevant
The graphic for the download is misleading. Jane McDowell does a good job but is not Clare Corbett. A new voice is a little disconcerting when following a series.

Bring back Clare Corbett

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I’ve never experienced such painful read. I could hear too many mouth dry sounds. It was so distracting I couldn’t focus on the story. I thought maybe I can filter out those noises eventually but I was very wrong.
Genuinely an unpleasant listen.
I didn’t notice it much in the sample.
As for the story, it was rather flat and obvious. Couldn’t feel any of the characters.

Narrator’s dry mouth

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Neat and tidy whodunnit (bit convenient in parts but hey). Amusing and likeable characters. Interesting archeological and biblical references. Well researched. A bit pedestrian but very agreeable nevertheless.

A 'gentle' murder mystery. Midsomer Murders style.

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Another book in the series of whodunits. Jane McDowell has a very pleasant voice although at some parts it sounded like she was sucking a sweet (which I did find irritating) this is why I've only given the performance 4 stars.

The woman in blue

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I'd really looked forward to this book! I've listened to the previous seven stories, one after another and was anticipating this book, set as it is in Walsingham (a place I love!)! However, as a sufferer of Misophonia, the swallowing and mouth noises made it unpleasant listening. The change of narrator was also a shame. One of the characters, who has hitherto been possessed of a very "plummy", Public School accent, now sounds like an archetypal Irish peasant! Which was jarring! I'm saddened that Ruth's character doesn't seem to know that oysters were a poor man's food in the Middle Ages. And that she's so disparaging of Croydon! My home town!

I see that the following books have the same narrator. I'm weighing my enthusiasm for the stories against my discomfort at the unintentional sound effects.

Interesting

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